Are You Able to Crack This? The Forgotten Netherlands Invention That Shaped our Contemporary World
There are numerous contenders for the title of “world’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
As per a new book, however, that honor should go to a mechanised sawmill invented by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Prior to automated cutting, building a simple trading ship necessitated approximately ten lumberjacks working over three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven lumber mills, an identical quantity of cut lumber could be manufactured in less than a week.”
Thanks to this rapid automated cutter, which turned timber into planks with virtually no human effort, the Dutch could construct ships more quickly compared to any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, economic and artistic supremacy across the continent and the globe.
The First True Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues Dávila, represented “mankind’s initial true industrial apparatus.” A windmill turned a wheel. A single part transformed the circular movement to up-and-down action for the cutting blade. Another component changed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s movement feeding the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log forward a measured step each stroke.
“Every component seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine these parts so the machine acted within a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every descending motion and advancing on every return motion. It was a remarkably clever application of basic parts.”
A fact that brings us up to the current puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent a key the basic ideas behind this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine which converts rotary motion to vertical action. You have these items only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve through which one of the rods can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so that the parts do not fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK time featuring the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s most impactful invention.