Can You Solve This? That Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Forged our Contemporary World
There are many contenders to claim the designation as “planet’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that title belongs to a automated sawmill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated cutting, constructing a simple merchant vessel required approximately 10 sawyers laboring over 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber could be produced in less than seven days.”
Owing to their speedy automated cutter, which turned timber into planks with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch were able to build vessels more quickly than any other nation, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch naval, economic and artistic dominance in Europe and the world.
The First True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's sawmill, contends the writer, was “mankind’s first true factory apparatus.” A windmill turned a gear. A single part converted its circular motion into vertical action to power the saw. A separate mechanism changed the rotary movement into a lateral movement advancing the timber toward the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the log ahead a measured step per stroke.
“Every component was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to combine these parts so the machine acted in a perfectly controlled order, cutting with each descending stroke and moving on every return motion. It was a remarkably intelligent application of basic parts.”
A fact that leads us to the current challenge. The task is you to reimagine a key the basic ideas behind Corneliszoon’s machine.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine which converts rotary motion into up-and-down action. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or sleeve into which a single the rods will fit snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so that the components don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please suggest (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s greatest invention.
