Are You Able to Crack This? That Forgotten Netherlands Invention Which Shaped our Modern World
There are many contenders to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that title should go to a mechanised timber mill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised cutting, constructing a modest merchant vessel required around ten lumberjacks working for 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same amount of processed timber might be manufactured within seven days.”
Owing to this speedy automated saw, which converted logs into planks using almost no human effort, the Dutch were able to build ships more quickly than anyone else, which unleashed a century of Dutch naval, economic as well as artistic supremacy across Europe and the world.
The First True Manufacturing Device
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, represented “humanity’s first authentic industrial machine.” A windmill turned a wheel. One component transformed its rotary motion to up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the spinning motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the log toward the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the wood forward one precise increment per stroke.
“Every component was modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius was to combine them so they acted within a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing on every downward motion while moving with each upward stroke. This constituted a remarkably intelligent application of basic components.”
Which brings us up to the current challenge. The task is you to reinvent a key the fundamental concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Design a machine that turns rotary motion into vertical motion. You have these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or sleeve through which a single the rods will fit perfectly. (Assume you can put things on a base, so that the parts do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s most impactful creation.
