Are You Able to Crack This? The Forgotten Dutch Creation Which Forged the Modern Globe
There are numerous candidates for the designation as “world’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, however, that title belongs to a automated sawmill conceived through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before mechanised cutting, constructing a modest merchant vessel necessitated around ten lumberjacks working over 90 days,” writes the author. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical quantity of cut lumber might be produced within a week.”
Owing to their rapid mechanical saw, that turned logs into boards using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could build ships more quickly than any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands naval, economic as well as cultural supremacy across Europe and the world.
The Original True Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends the writer, was “mankind’s initial authentic industrial machine.” A windmill rotated a gear. One component transformed the rotary motion to up-and-down action to power the cutting blade. Another component transformed the spinning motion into a lateral motion advancing the timber to the blade. A geared mechanism moved the log forward one precise increment per cycle.
“Each element seemed modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine them so the machine acted within a perfectly controlled order, cutting with each downward motion and advancing with each return motion. It was an astonishingly clever use of basic components.”
A fact that brings us up to the current puzzle. The task is for you to reimagine one of the basic concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine which converts rotary motion to up-and-down motion. You have these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or sleeve into which a single the bars will fit perfectly. (Assume you can put things on a base, so the components don’t collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (less celebrated) candidates for the planet’s most impactful creation.
