Are You Able to Solve It? The Forgotten Netherlands Invention That Forged the Contemporary Globe
One can find numerous candidates for the designation as “world’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that honor belongs to the automated sawmill conceived through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before mechanised cutting, constructing a simple trading ship necessitated approximately 10 lumberjacks working over three months,” writes the author. “With wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of processed timber could be manufactured in less than a week.”
Owing to this speedy automated saw, that turned timber into boards using almost no manual labor, the Dutch could construct ships more quickly than any other nation, which sparked a century of Netherlands maritime, economic and cultural supremacy across the continent and the world.
The Original Genuine Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues the writer, represented “humanity’s first true industrial machine.” A wind turbine turned a gear. A single part converted the circular motion into up-and-down action for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same rotary movement into a sideway’s movement feeding the timber toward the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the log ahead one precise increment per cycle.
“Every component was simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius was to combine them in order that the machine operated in a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each descending motion and moving with each upward stroke. This constituted a remarkably intelligent use of basic parts.”
A fact that leads us up to the current puzzle. I’d like you to reimagine a key the fundamental ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Circular to Vertical
Design a mechanism which converts rotary motion into up-and-down motion. Your available these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing into which one of the rods will fit perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a stand, so the components do not fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK time with the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s most impactful invention.
