Can You Crack This? That Forgotten Dutch Creation That Forged our Contemporary Globe
One can find numerous contenders to claim the title of “world’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
As per a new book, though, that title belongs to a mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised cutting, building a simple trading ship necessitated around 10 sawyers working for 90 days,” notes the author. “With wind-driven sawmills, the same quantity of cut lumber could be manufactured in less than a week.”
Thanks to this rapid automated saw, which converted logs to planks using almost no manual labor, Dutch builders could construct ships more quickly compared to any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch naval, economic as well as artistic supremacy across the continent and the world.
The First Genuine Industrial Machine
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends the writer, was “mankind’s initial true factory apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. A single part transformed the rotary motion to up-and-down motion to power the saw. Another component changed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s movement feeding the timber to the blade. A ratchet system moved the wood ahead one precise increment per stroke.
“Each element seemed modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to combine these parts in order that they acted within a perfectly controlled order, sawing on every descending stroke while moving on every return stroke. It was a remarkably intelligent use of basic components.”
A fact that leads us to the current challenge. The task is you to reinvent one of the basic concepts underpinning this historic machine.
Round and Up
Construct a machine which converts rotary movement into vertical action. Your available these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing into which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Assume you can mount components on a stand, so the components don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders as the planet’s greatest creation.
