Can You Solve It? That Forgotten Dutch Invention That Shaped our Contemporary World
One can find many candidates to claim the designation as “world’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, however, that honor should go to the mechanised timber mill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel necessitated around ten sawyers working for 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same quantity of processed timber could be manufactured within a week.”
Owing to their rapid mechanical cutter, which turned logs to boards using almost no human effort, Dutch builders were able to build vessels more quickly than any other nation, which sparked a century of Dutch maritime, economic as well as artistic dominance in Europe and the world.
The First True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's sawmill, contends Dávila, was “mankind’s initial authentic factory machine.” A windmill turned a gear. One component converted the rotary motion to vertical motion for the cutting blade. Another component changed the spinning movement into a lateral motion feeding the timber to the blade. A geared mechanism moved the log ahead one precise increment per stroke.
“Each element seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to combine these parts so they acted in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing with each downward motion while advancing on every return stroke. It was an astonishingly intelligent application of basic components.”
Which brings us up to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reinvent a key the fundamental concepts behind this historic invention.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism that turns rotary movement into up-and-down motion. Your available these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or housing into which one of the bars will fit snugly. (Consider that it is possible to mount components on a base, so the parts do not fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK with the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to propose (non obvious) contenders for the world’s greatest invention.
