Are You Able to Solve This? The Forgotten Netherlands Creation That Forged our Contemporary World
One can find numerous contenders for the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
As per a recent publication, though, that title should go to the automated sawmill invented by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, constructing a simple trading ship required approximately ten sawyers working over 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber might be manufactured within seven days.”
Owing to this rapid automated saw, that converted timber into boards with almost no human effort, Dutch builders were able to construct vessels more quickly than anyone else, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, economic as well as cultural supremacy in the continent and the world.
The Original True Industrial Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends Dávila, represented “mankind’s first authentic factory machine.” A wind turbine turned a gear. One component converted the rotary motion into up-and-down motion for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the spinning movement into a sideway’s movement feeding the timber to the blade. A geared mechanism moved the log forward one precise increment per cycle.
“Each element seemed simple on its own. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to combine these parts so they acted in a precisely synchronized order, cutting on every downward stroke while advancing on every return motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent application of basic components.”
A fact that brings us to the current challenge. I’d like you to reinvent a key the basic ideas behind Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Design a machine which converts circular movement to vertical motion. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or sleeve into which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that you can mount components on a stand, so the parts don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK time with the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please propose (less celebrated) candidates for the planet’s greatest invention.
