Are You Able to Crack This? That Forgotten Dutch Invention That Shaped our Contemporary World
One can find many candidates to claim the title of “planet’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a new book, though, that honor belongs to a mechanised sawmill invented through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel required around 10 lumberjacks laboring for three months,” notes the author. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical quantity of processed timber might be manufactured within seven days.”
Thanks to their speedy mechanical cutter, which turned timber to boards with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could construct ships more quickly compared to anyone else, an advantage that sparked a century of Dutch maritime, financial and cultural supremacy across the continent and the globe.
The First True Industrial Machine
The inventor's sawmill, contends the writer, represented “humanity’s initial true factory apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a gear. One component converted its rotary motion to vertical motion for the cutting blade. Another component transformed that same spinning movement into a lateral motion feeding the timber to the blade. A ratchet system shifted the log ahead one precise increment per cycle.
“Every component was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius was to combine them in order that the machine operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every downward stroke and moving on every upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent use of basic parts.”
A fact that leads us to today’s challenge. The task is you to reimagine one of the fundamental concepts behind this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a mechanism that turns rotary motion into vertical motion. You have these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or housing through which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a stand, so that the components do not fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK with the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to propose (less celebrated) candidates as the planet’s most impactful creation.