Can You Solve It? That Overlooked Dutch Creation Which Shaped the Modern Globe
One can find numerous contenders to claim the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a new book, however, that honor should go to a mechanised timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, constructing a modest trading ship necessitated around 10 sawyers laboring over three months,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of processed timber might be produced within a week.”
Owing to their rapid mechanical cutter, that converted logs to planks using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could build vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, financial as well as cultural supremacy across the continent and the globe.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends the writer, represented “humanity’s initial true factory apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. One component transformed its rotary movement to vertical action to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the rotary motion into a lateral movement advancing the log to the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log ahead a measured step each stroke.
“Every component seemed simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to integrate these parts so the machine operated within a perfectly controlled order, sawing with each descending motion and moving with each upward motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of fundamental parts.”
Which brings us to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reimagine a key the fundamental ideas behind Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine which converts rotary movement into up-and-down action. Your available these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or housing into which one of the bars can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can mount components on a stand, so that the parts do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (non obvious) candidates for the planet’s most impactful creation.
