Are You Able to Crack This? That Overlooked Netherlands Invention Which Shaped the Contemporary Globe
One can find many contenders to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a new book, though, that honor should go to a automated sawmill invented through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel required approximately ten sawyers working over three months,” writes the author. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of cut lumber might be manufactured within seven days.”
Thanks to their rapid mechanical saw, that converted logs to boards using virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to construct vessels faster compared to any other nation, which unleashed a century of Netherlands maritime, financial and artistic supremacy in the continent and the world.
The First Genuine Industrial Device
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s first authentic factory apparatus.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part transformed the circular motion into up-and-down motion for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed that same rotary motion into a lateral motion advancing the log to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the log ahead one precise increment per stroke.
“Every component seemed simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius was to integrate them so they acted within a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing with each downward stroke while moving with each upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly clever application of fundamental parts.”
A fact that leads us to the current puzzle. I’d like for you to reimagine a key the fundamental ideas behind this historic invention.
Round and Up
Construct a machine that turns circular movement into up-and-down motion. You have these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a tube or housing through which one of the rods will fit snugly. (Consider that you can mount components on a base, so that the components don’t collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s greatest creation.