Can You Crack This? That Overlooked Dutch Creation Which Forged our Contemporary World
There are many candidates to claim the title of “world’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, however, that title should go to the mechanised sawmill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, constructing a modest trading ship required approximately 10 sawyers laboring over 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be manufactured within seven days.”
Owing to their rapid automated saw, which turned logs to planks using almost no human effort, Dutch builders were able to construct ships faster than anyone else, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, financial and artistic dominance across the continent and the globe.
The Original True Manufacturing Device
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s initial true industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. A single part transformed the rotary movement to up-and-down action for the saw. A separate mechanism changed that same rotary motion into a lateral movement advancing the timber toward the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the log forward one precise increment per cycle.
“Every component seemed simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate them in order that they acted within a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting with each downward stroke and moving on every upward motion. It was a remarkably intelligent application of basic components.”
Which brings us up to the current challenge. The task is for you to reinvent one of the basic ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine that turns circular motion to up-and-down action. Your available these items only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing into which one of the rods can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can mount components on a stand, so that the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the answer.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s most impactful creation.