Can You Solve It? That Forgotten Netherlands Invention That Shaped our Contemporary World
One can find numerous candidates for the designation as “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that honor should go to a automated sawmill invented by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel required approximately 10 lumberjacks laboring for three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be manufactured within a week.”
Owing to this speedy mechanical saw, that turned timber into boards using virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to construct vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, an advantage that unleashed a century of Netherlands maritime, economic as well as artistic dominance across the continent and the world.
The Original True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, represented “mankind’s first true factory machine.” A windmill rotated a wheel. A single part converted its circular motion into vertical motion to power the cutting blade. Another component changed the rotary movement into a sideway’s motion advancing the log to the blade. A ratchet system moved the log ahead one precise increment per cycle.
“Every component was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to integrate them in order that the machine acted in a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting with each descending motion and advancing with each upward motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental components.”
A fact that leads us up to today’s puzzle. I’d like you to reimagine one of the fundamental concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a mechanism that turns circular motion to vertical action. You have these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing through which a single the rods will fit snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a stand, so that the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders for the world’s greatest creation.
