Are You Able to Crack It? The Forgotten Dutch Invention That Shaped our Modern Globe
There are many candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.
As per a recent publication, however, that honor should go to a automated timber mill conceived through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated cutting, constructing a simple trading ship required around 10 lumberjacks working for three months,” writes the author. “With wind-powered sawmills, the same amount of processed timber could be manufactured in less than a week.”
Thanks to their rapid automated saw, which turned logs to planks with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch were able to build vessels faster than anyone else, an advantage that sparked a century of Netherlands naval, financial and artistic supremacy in Europe and the globe.
The First True Industrial Machine
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues Dávila, was “humanity’s initial authentic industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. A single part transformed the rotary movement to up-and-down action for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same rotary movement into a lateral motion advancing the log toward the blade. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead a measured step each cycle.
“Each element seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to integrate these parts in order that the machine acted in a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing with each descending motion and advancing on every upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly clever use of basic components.”
Which leads us up to today’s challenge. I’d like you to reinvent a key the fundamental ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a mechanism which converts circular movement into vertical action. You have these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or housing into which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so the parts do not collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK time with the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s greatest invention.