Can You Crack This? That Forgotten Dutch Invention Which Forged our Modern World
One can find numerous candidates for the designation as “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
As per a new book, though, that honor should go to a automated sawmill invented through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, building a simple trading ship necessitated approximately ten sawyers laboring for three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven lumber mills, the same quantity of cut lumber could be produced in less than a week.”
Owing to their speedy automated cutter, that turned logs into planks using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could construct vessels faster compared to any other nation, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, economic and cultural supremacy across Europe and the world.
The Original Genuine Industrial Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s first authentic factory machine.” A windmill turned a gear. A single part converted the rotary movement to vertical motion for the saw. Another component transformed the rotary movement into a lateral movement advancing the log toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the wood ahead one precise increment per stroke.
“Every component seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine them so they operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting with each descending stroke while advancing on every upward motion. It was a remarkably clever application of fundamental components.”
A fact that brings us up to the current puzzle. I’d like for you to reinvent a key the fundamental concepts behind Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Design a machine that turns circular movement to up-and-down action. You have these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or housing into which one of the bars will fit perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so that the components do not fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time featuring the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please suggest (less celebrated) candidates as the planet’s greatest invention.
