Can You Crack It? The Overlooked Dutch Invention Which Shaped our Contemporary Globe
There are many contenders to claim the title of “world’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a new book, though, that honor should go to a automated timber mill invented by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, constructing a simple merchant vessel necessitated approximately 10 sawyers working over three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven sawmills, the same amount of cut lumber could be produced within seven days.”
Owing to this speedy automated saw, which turned timber to planks with almost no human effort, Dutch builders could construct ships more quickly than any other nation, an advantage that sparked a century of Netherlands naval, economic as well as artistic supremacy across Europe and the world.
The First Genuine Industrial Device
The inventor's sawmill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s initial true industrial apparatus.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part converted its rotary motion to vertical motion for the saw. A separate mechanism transformed the rotary motion into a lateral motion feeding the log to the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead a measured step each cycle.
“Every component was modest by itself. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to combine them so they acted in a perfectly controlled order, sawing on every downward stroke and advancing with each return stroke. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of basic components.”
A fact that brings us up to the current puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent a key the basic ideas behind this historic machine.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism that turns rotary movement to up-and-down action. Your available 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 snugly. (Assume you can put things on a stand, so the parts do not collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK time featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the planet’s greatest creation.
