Can You Solve This? The Forgotten Netherlands Invention Which Shaped our Contemporary Globe
One can find many candidates to claim the title of “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, however, that honor should go to a automated sawmill conceived through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before automated sawing, building a modest merchant vessel required approximately 10 lumberjacks working for three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered sawmills, an identical amount of cut lumber might be produced within seven days.”
Owing to their speedy mechanical cutter, that converted logs to boards using almost no human effort, Dutch builders were able to construct ships faster compared to any other nation, an advantage that sparked a century of Netherlands maritime, financial as well as cultural supremacy across the continent and the world.
The Original Genuine Industrial Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s initial true factory apparatus.” A windmill rotated a gear. One component converted the circular motion to up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. Another component transformed the rotary motion into a sideway’s motion advancing the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the wood ahead a measured step per stroke.
“Each element was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to combine them so the machine operated within a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every downward stroke and advancing with each upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent use of fundamental parts.”
Which brings us to today’s puzzle. The task is you to reinvent one of the basic ideas underpinning this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine which converts circular motion to up-and-down motion. You have these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or housing into which one of the bars will fit snugly. (Consider that it is possible to mount components on a stand, so that the components do not fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the planet’s most impactful creation.
