Can You Solve This? That Overlooked Dutch Creation Which Forged the Modern World
There are many contenders to claim the title of “planet’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that honor should go to the mechanised sawmill conceived through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, constructing a modest trading ship required approximately 10 sawyers working for 90 days,” notes the author. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be produced in less than seven days.”
Owing to their speedy automated saw, which turned timber to planks with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch were able to build vessels faster than anyone else, which sparked a century of Dutch naval, economic as well as cultural supremacy across the continent and the globe.
The First True Manufacturing Device
The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s first true factory apparatus.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part converted the rotary movement into vertical action to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same spinning movement into a lateral movement advancing the timber toward the cutter. A ratchet system moved the wood ahead one precise increment per stroke.
“Every component was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to combine these parts in order that the machine acted within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting on every downward motion and moving on every upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly clever use of fundamental components.”
Which brings us to the current puzzle. The task is for you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts underpinning this historic invention.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism that turns circular motion to up-and-down motion. You have these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or sleeve into which a single the bars can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so the components do not collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK time featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders as the world’s most impactful invention.
