Are You Able to Crack It? The Overlooked Dutch Invention That Shaped our Modern World
One can find numerous candidates for the designation as “planet’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, however, that title belongs to the automated sawmill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated cutting, constructing a simple merchant vessel required approximately 10 sawyers laboring for 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber could be produced within a week.”
Owing to this rapid automated saw, that turned timber into planks using virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders could build ships faster compared to any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch naval, financial as well as cultural supremacy across Europe and the world.
The First True Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues the writer, represented “mankind’s first authentic industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a gear. A single part converted its circular motion into up-and-down motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed the rotary motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the log to the blade. A ratchet system moved the log forward one precise increment each stroke.
“Each element seemed modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius was to integrate them so the machine acted in a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each descending motion and advancing with each upward motion. This constituted a remarkably clever application of fundamental parts.”
A fact that brings us to today’s puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts underpinning this historic invention.
Round and Up
Construct a machine that turns circular motion to up-and-down action. You have these items only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or sleeve through which a single the bars will fit perfectly. (Consider that you can mount components on a stand, so that the parts don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK featuring the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders as the planet’s greatest invention.
