Can You Crack This? The Overlooked Dutch Creation That Shaped our Contemporary Globe
One can find many candidates for the designation as “world’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.
As per a new book, however, that title should go to the automated timber mill conceived by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised cutting, building a modest merchant vessel necessitated around 10 sawyers laboring for three months,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, the same amount of cut lumber might be manufactured in less than a week.”
Owing to their rapid automated saw, which turned timber into planks using virtually no human effort, Dutch builders could construct vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch naval, economic and artistic supremacy in the continent and the world.
The Original Genuine Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues Dávila, represented “mankind’s first true industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. A single part transformed its circular movement into up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. Another component changed the spinning motion into a lateral movement feeding the log to the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the wood forward one precise increment per stroke.
“Every component seemed modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate these parts in order that the machine operated in a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing with each downward stroke while advancing on every upward stroke. It was a remarkably clever use of fundamental parts.”
A fact that leads us up to the current puzzle. I’d like for you to reinvent a key the fundamental concepts behind Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine which converts circular motion to up-and-down motion. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a tube or housing through which a single the rods can slide perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to mount components on a base, so that the parts do not collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK featuring the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to propose (less celebrated) candidates for the planet’s greatest invention.
