Can You Crack It? That Forgotten Netherlands Creation That Shaped the Modern World
One can find many contenders for the title of “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a new book, though, that honor belongs to a mechanised timber mill invented by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, building a simple trading ship necessitated approximately 10 lumberjacks laboring for 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, an identical amount of processed timber could be produced within a week.”
Thanks to this speedy mechanical saw, which turned timber into planks using virtually no human effort, Dutch builders could build vessels faster than anyone else, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, financial as well as artistic dominance in Europe and the globe.
The First True Industrial Device
The inventor's sawmill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s initial true factory machine.” A windmill turned a wheel. One component converted the circular motion to up-and-down motion for the saw. A separate mechanism changed the rotary movement into a lateral motion feeding the log to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the log forward a measured step per cycle.
“Every component seemed simple by itself. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to combine them in order that the machine acted within a perfectly controlled order, sawing on every descending motion while advancing on every upward motion. This constituted a remarkably clever use of basic components.”
A fact that leads us up to today’s challenge. The task is you to reimagine a key the basic ideas behind Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism which converts circular motion to vertical motion. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve into which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so that the components do not fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK time with the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (non obvious) candidates as the planet’s most impactful invention.
