Can You Solve This? The Forgotten Netherlands Creation Which Shaped the Contemporary World
There are many candidates for the title of “world’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, though, that title belongs to the mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel required around 10 sawyers working over three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of cut lumber could be manufactured in less than a week.”
Owing to their speedy automated saw, that turned logs to planks using almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, financial as well as cultural dominance across Europe and the globe.
The Original True Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “mankind’s first true industrial machine.” A windmill turned a gear. A single part transformed its circular motion into up-and-down motion for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the spinning motion into a sideway’s motion advancing the log toward the blade. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead a measured step each stroke.
“Each element seemed simple by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine them so the machine operated in a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting on every descending stroke and advancing on every upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental parts.”
A fact that leads us up to today’s puzzle. I’d like you to reimagine a key the fundamental ideas behind Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism that turns rotary motion into up-and-down action. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve through which a single the bars will fit snugly. (Consider that you can mount components on a stand, so the parts do not fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK time with the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) candidates as the world’s most impactful invention.
