Are You Able to Crack It? That Overlooked Netherlands Invention Which Forged our Contemporary Globe
One can find numerous candidates to claim the title of “world’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, however, that honor belongs to the automated timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, constructing a simple merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten lumberjacks laboring for 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of processed timber might be produced in less than a week.”
Thanks to their speedy automated saw, that turned logs into planks with almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to build ships faster compared to anyone else, which sparked a century of Netherlands maritime, financial and cultural supremacy in Europe and the globe.
The First True Industrial Device
The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, was “mankind’s initial authentic factory apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a gear. One component transformed its circular motion into up-and-down motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism changed the spinning motion into a lateral movement feeding the timber to the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the log ahead one precise increment per stroke.
“Every component seemed modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to combine them so the machine acted within a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each descending stroke and advancing with each return stroke. It was a remarkably intelligent use of basic components.”
Which leads us up to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reimagine one of the basic ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine which converts rotary motion into up-and-down action. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing through which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Assume you can put things on a stand, so the components don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time featuring the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders as the world’s greatest invention.
