Can You Crack It? That Overlooked Netherlands Invention That Forged our Contemporary World
One can find many contenders to claim the designation as “world’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, though, that title should go to a mechanised sawmill conceived through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, building a modest merchant vessel required around 10 lumberjacks working for three months,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same quantity of cut lumber could be produced in less than seven days.”
Owing to their rapid mechanical cutter, which turned logs to planks using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could build vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, an advantage that sparked a century of Dutch naval, economic and artistic dominance across the continent and the world.
The Original Genuine Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's sawmill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s first authentic industrial machine.” A windmill turned a wheel. One component transformed its circular motion to vertical action for the saw. A separate mechanism changed the rotary motion into a lateral movement feeding the log to the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the wood ahead one precise increment each cycle.
“Every component was modest by itself. The Dutchman’s genius was to integrate them in order that the machine operated in a perfectly controlled order, sawing on every downward stroke and moving on every return stroke. This constituted an astonishingly clever use of fundamental components.”
A fact that brings us to the current puzzle. I’d like for you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts underpinning this historic invention.
Round and Up
Construct a machine which converts rotary movement to up-and-down motion. Your available these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or sleeve into which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to mount components on a stand, so that the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK featuring the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to propose (non obvious) candidates for the planet’s greatest creation.
