Can You Solve This? That Forgotten Dutch Creation That Forged the Modern World
One can find numerous contenders for the title of “planet’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, however, that title belongs to a mechanised sawmill invented through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Prior to automated cutting, building a simple trading ship required around ten lumberjacks laboring for three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of cut lumber might be produced in less than seven days.”
Owing to this rapid mechanical cutter, that converted logs into boards with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct ships more quickly compared to any other nation, an advantage that sparked a century of Dutch maritime, financial as well as artistic supremacy across Europe and the world.
The First True Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s first authentic factory apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a gear. One component converted its rotary motion into up-and-down action to power the saw. A separate mechanism changed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s motion feeding the log to the blade. A ratchet system shifted the log ahead one precise increment per stroke.
“Every component seemed modest by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine them so they operated in a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each descending stroke and advancing on every upward stroke. It was a remarkably clever application of fundamental components.”
A fact that brings us to today’s challenge. The task is you to reimagine one of the basic ideas behind Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism that turns circular movement to up-and-down motion. You have these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or housing through which a single the rods will fit snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so the components don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK with the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s most impactful invention.