Can You Solve This? The Forgotten Netherlands Invention That Forged the Modern Globe
One can find numerous candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, however, that title belongs to the automated sawmill invented by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised cutting, building a simple merchant vessel required around ten lumberjacks laboring over three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of processed timber could be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Owing to this rapid automated saw, that converted timber into boards with virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders could construct ships faster than any other nation, which unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, economic and artistic supremacy in the continent and the globe.
The First Genuine Industrial Machine
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “humanity’s initial authentic industrial machine.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. A single part transformed its rotary motion into vertical motion to power the saw. Another component transformed the spinning motion into a sideway’s motion advancing the timber to the blade. A geared mechanism moved the wood forward a measured step each stroke.
“Each element seemed modest by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine them so the machine acted in a perfectly controlled order, cutting with each descending stroke and moving on every return motion. It was an astonishingly clever application of fundamental parts.”
A fact that leads us to today’s puzzle. The task is for you to reimagine a key the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Design a mechanism which converts rotary movement into up-and-down motion. You have these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a tube or housing through which a single the bars will fit perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so the components don’t collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time featuring the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the planet’s most impactful invention.
