Are You Able to Solve This? That Forgotten Dutch Invention That Forged the Modern World
There are many contenders to claim the designation as “planet’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, though, that honor should go to a automated sawmill invented through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised cutting, constructing a modest trading ship required around 10 sawyers laboring for three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber might be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Owing to this rapid automated saw, which turned logs into planks using almost no human effort, Dutch builders could construct vessels more quickly than any other nation, which unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, economic as well as artistic dominance in Europe and the globe.
The Original True Industrial Device
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, represented “humanity’s first authentic industrial apparatus.” A windmill rotated a wheel. A single part transformed the rotary movement into up-and-down motion for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed the spinning movement into a sideway’s motion advancing the timber to the blade. A ratchet system shifted the log ahead one precise increment each cycle.
“Every component seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to combine these parts so the machine acted in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every descending motion while advancing with each upward stroke. It was an astonishingly clever application of fundamental components.”
Which leads us up to today’s puzzle. I’d like for you to reinvent a key the basic ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Round and Up
Design a machine which converts circular motion to up-and-down motion. You have these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or sleeve into which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to mount components on a stand, so the components do not fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK time featuring the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please propose (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s greatest invention.
