Are You Able to Crack It? The Overlooked Dutch Creation That Shaped our Contemporary World
There are many candidates for the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that title belongs to a automated timber mill invented through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised cutting, constructing a modest trading ship necessitated approximately 10 sawyers laboring for three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same amount of processed timber might be manufactured within seven days.”
Owing to their rapid mechanical cutter, that turned logs into planks with almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to build vessels more quickly than anyone else, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch naval, economic and cultural dominance in the continent and the world.
The Original Genuine Manufacturing Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “humanity’s first authentic industrial machine.” A windmill rotated a wheel. A single part converted the circular movement to vertical motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed the rotary motion into a sideway’s movement advancing the log toward the cutter. A ratchet system moved the log forward a measured step per cycle.
“Every component was simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to integrate these parts in order that the machine operated within a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing with each downward stroke and moving with each upward stroke. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of fundamental components.”
Which leads us to the current puzzle. The task is you to reimagine one of the basic ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine that turns circular motion into up-and-down motion. Your available these components 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 it is possible to mount components on a stand, so the components don’t collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) candidates as the planet’s greatest creation.
