Can You Crack This? That Overlooked Dutch Creation Which Shaped our Modern World
One can find numerous contenders for the designation as “world’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.
As per a recent publication, though, that honor should go to the mechanised sawmill conceived through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Before mechanised cutting, constructing a modest merchant vessel necessitated around ten sawyers laboring for three months,” writes the author. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be manufactured in less than a week.”
Thanks to their speedy automated cutter, that turned timber to boards using virtually no human effort, Dutch builders were able to build ships faster than anyone else, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Dutch naval, economic as well as cultural supremacy in Europe and the globe.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Device
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues Dávila, represented “mankind’s initial true industrial machine.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. A single part transformed its rotary movement into vertical motion for the cutting blade. Another component transformed that same spinning movement into a lateral movement advancing the log toward the cutter. A ratchet system moved the log ahead a measured step per stroke.
“Every component seemed simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to integrate these parts so the machine acted within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting with each downward stroke and advancing with each upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly clever application of basic parts.”
A fact that leads us to today’s puzzle. The task is you to reimagine one of the basic ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Round and Up
Construct a machine that turns rotary movement into vertical motion. Your available these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or housing through which one of the bars will fit snugly. (Consider that it is possible to mount components on a base, so the components don’t collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK time with the answer.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) candidates for the planet’s most impactful invention.
