Are You Able to Crack This? The Overlooked Dutch Invention That Shaped our Modern Globe
There are many contenders for the designation as “planet’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a new book, however, that honor belongs to the mechanised timber mill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated cutting, constructing a modest merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten sawyers laboring for 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same amount of processed timber might be produced within seven days.”
Owing to this speedy mechanical saw, that turned logs into boards with almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct vessels more quickly than anyone else, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, financial as well as cultural supremacy in Europe and the world.
The First Genuine Industrial Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s first true factory machine.” A windmill turned a gear. A single part converted its rotary motion to vertical action to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same rotary movement into a lateral movement feeding the log toward the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the wood ahead a measured step per stroke.
“Each element was modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to integrate these parts so the machine operated within a precisely synchronized order, cutting on every descending stroke while advancing on every upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental parts.”
A fact that leads us up to the current challenge. The task is you to reinvent a key the basic ideas behind Corneliszoon’s machine.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine that turns rotary motion into vertical motion. Your available these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or sleeve through which one of the rods can slide perfectly. (Assume you can put things on a base, so the components don’t collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please propose (non obvious) contenders for the world’s most impactful invention.
