Are You Able to Crack It? That Forgotten Netherlands Invention Which Forged the Contemporary Globe
One can find many contenders for the title of “planet’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that title should go to a mechanised sawmill conceived through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before mechanised cutting, constructing a simple trading ship necessitated approximately 10 sawyers working for 90 days,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be produced within a week.”
Thanks to their speedy mechanical cutter, that turned timber into boards using almost no manual labor, the Dutch could build ships faster compared to any other nation, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Dutch naval, economic and artistic supremacy across the continent and the world.
The Original True Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues Dávila, represented “mankind’s initial authentic industrial machine.” A windmill rotated a wheel. A single part transformed the rotary movement into up-and-down action for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed that same rotary movement into a lateral movement feeding the log to the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the log ahead a measured step per cycle.
“Every component seemed modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to combine them in order that the machine operated in a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each downward motion while advancing with each return stroke. This constituted a remarkably intelligent application of fundamental components.”
Which brings us up to the current challenge. The task is for you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts behind this historic machine.
Round and Up
Design a machine which converts rotary movement into up-and-down motion. You have these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or housing into which one of the rods will fit snugly. (Consider that it is possible to mount components on a base, so the components do not collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK time featuring the answer.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please propose (non obvious) candidates for the planet’s greatest invention.
