Can You Solve It? That Overlooked Netherlands Invention Which Shaped our Modern Globe
There are many contenders for the title of “planet’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a new book, though, that honor should go to the automated sawmill conceived through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, building a modest merchant vessel required around 10 lumberjacks laboring over three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same amount of cut lumber could be produced within seven days.”
Owing to this speedy mechanical saw, which converted logs into planks with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could build vessels faster than anyone else, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, financial and artistic supremacy across the continent and the world.
The First Genuine Industrial Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s initial authentic factory apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. One component transformed the rotary movement to vertical action to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed the spinning motion into a sideway’s motion advancing the log to the blade. A ratchet system moved the wood ahead one precise increment per stroke.
“Each element was modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate these parts so the machine operated within a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each descending stroke while moving with each return stroke. It was a remarkably clever application of basic components.”
A fact that leads us to the current puzzle. The task is for you to reinvent one of the basic ideas behind Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Construct a machine which converts rotary movement into vertical motion. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing through which a single the bars will fit snugly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a stand, so the parts do not collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (non obvious) candidates as the planet’s most impactful creation.
