Are You Able to Crack This? That Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Shaped our Contemporary Globe
One can find many contenders for the title of “world’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, however, that honor should go to the mechanised timber mill invented through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before mechanised cutting, building a modest trading ship necessitated around ten sawyers laboring for three months,” writes the author. “With wind-driven lumber mills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be manufactured within a week.”
Thanks to this rapid automated cutter, which turned logs to boards with almost no human effort, Dutch builders could build ships faster compared to anyone else, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Dutch maritime, financial as well as artistic dominance in the continent and the world.
The Original True Industrial Device
The inventor's sawmill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s first authentic factory machine.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part transformed the circular motion to up-and-down motion for the saw. Another component changed the spinning movement into a sideway’s movement feeding the timber to the blade. A geared mechanism moved the wood forward a measured step each cycle.
“Each element seemed simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius was to integrate them so the machine operated within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting with each downward stroke while moving with each return motion. This constituted a remarkably intelligent application of fundamental parts.”
Which leads us to today’s puzzle. The task is for you to reinvent a key the basic concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Design a machine which converts circular motion into up-and-down motion. Your available these items only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or housing into which one of the bars can slide snugly. (Assume you can mount components on a base, so the parts do not fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK featuring the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (non obvious) candidates as the planet’s greatest creation.
