Can You Crack This? The Overlooked Dutch Invention Which Forged the Modern World
One can find numerous contenders for the designation as “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, however, that title should go to the automated timber mill invented by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, building a simple trading ship necessitated around ten sawyers laboring for 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber might be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Owing to their rapid automated saw, which turned timber into boards with almost no manual labor, Dutch builders could construct vessels more quickly than any other nation, which unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, financial and artistic dominance in Europe and the globe.
The First True Manufacturing Device
The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, was “humanity’s initial true industrial machine.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part converted its rotary movement to up-and-down action to power the saw. Another component changed that same rotary motion into a lateral movement advancing the log to the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the log ahead one precise increment each cycle.
“Each element seemed modest by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to combine these parts in order that they operated in a perfectly controlled order, cutting on every downward motion and moving on every upward stroke. It was a remarkably intelligent use of fundamental components.”
Which brings us to the current puzzle. The task is you to reinvent one of the basic ideas behind Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a mechanism which converts rotary movement to up-and-down action. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a tube or housing through which one of the bars can slide snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a stand, so the parts don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please propose (non obvious) contenders as the planet’s most impactful creation.
