Can You Solve This? The Forgotten Dutch Creation Which Forged the Modern Globe
One can find many contenders for the title of “world’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, however, that title belongs to the mechanised sawmill conceived through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated sawing, constructing a modest trading ship necessitated approximately 10 sawyers working for three months,” notes the author. “With wind-driven lumber mills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be manufactured in less than a week.”
Thanks to this rapid automated saw, that converted logs into planks using almost no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build ships more quickly than anyone else, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, financial as well as cultural supremacy in the continent and the globe.
The First True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s initial authentic industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. A single part converted the circular movement to vertical motion to power the cutting blade. Another component changed that same rotary movement into a sideway’s movement advancing the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log ahead one precise increment each cycle.
“Every component was modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to integrate these parts in order that the machine operated in a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every downward stroke while moving on every return motion. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent use of basic parts.”
A fact that brings us to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reimagine a key the basic ideas behind this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine that turns circular motion into up-and-down motion. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing through which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so that the components do not collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK featuring the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) candidates for the world’s greatest creation.
