Are You Able to Solve This? That Overlooked Dutch Creation That Shaped the Contemporary Globe
One can find many contenders to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
As per a recent publication, though, that title belongs to a automated sawmill conceived by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, constructing a simple merchant vessel required around ten sawyers laboring over three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber could be produced within a week.”
Owing to their speedy automated saw, which turned timber to boards with almost no human effort, the Dutch could construct vessels more quickly than any other nation, an advantage that sparked a century of Netherlands maritime, financial as well as cultural dominance in Europe and the world.
The First True Industrial Device
The inventor's sawmill, contends Dávila, was “mankind’s initial authentic industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. One component converted its rotary motion into up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the rotary motion into a lateral motion feeding the timber toward the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead one precise increment per stroke.
“Each element was modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to combine these parts in order that they operated within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting on every downward motion and moving on every upward motion. This constituted a remarkably intelligent use of fundamental parts.”
Which leads us up to the current puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent a key the basic concepts behind Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine that turns circular motion to up-and-down action. Your available these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing into which one of the bars will fit snugly. (Assume you can put things on a base, so the parts do not fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK with the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please suggest (non obvious) contenders as the world’s greatest creation.
