Can You Solve This? That Forgotten Dutch Invention That Shaped our Contemporary Globe
There are many contenders to claim the title of “planet’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, though, that title should go to a automated sawmill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Before mechanised cutting, building a modest merchant vessel required around 10 sawyers laboring over 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same amount of cut lumber could be produced in less than seven days.”
Thanks to this speedy mechanical cutter, which turned timber to planks using virtually no human effort, Dutch builders could construct vessels faster than anyone else, which sparked one hundred years of Dutch naval, financial as well as artistic supremacy across the continent and the world.
The Original Genuine Industrial Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends Dávila, represented “humanity’s first true industrial apparatus.” A windmill turned a wheel. One component converted its circular movement into vertical action to power the cutting blade. Another component changed the spinning movement into a sideway’s motion feeding the log to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the wood ahead a measured step each stroke.
“Every component seemed simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to combine these parts so they acted within a perfectly controlled order, sawing with each downward motion while moving with each upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly clever application of basic components.”
Which leads us to the current challenge. The task is for you to reimagine one of the fundamental ideas behind Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Design a machine that turns circular movement into vertical motion. Your available these items only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or sleeve into which one of the bars can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to mount components on a base, so that the components do not collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK time featuring the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) candidates as the planet’s greatest invention.
