Can You Crack This? The Forgotten Dutch Invention Which Forged the Modern World
One can find numerous candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a new book, however, that honor belongs to a automated timber mill invented through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated cutting, constructing a modest merchant vessel necessitated around 10 sawyers working over three months,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of cut lumber could be produced in less than a week.”
Owing to their rapid automated saw, which turned timber into planks with almost no human effort, the Dutch were able to build vessels faster compared to any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands naval, economic and artistic supremacy across Europe and the world.
The First True Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues Dávila, was “humanity’s initial authentic industrial machine.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. A single part converted its rotary motion into up-and-down motion for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s motion advancing the timber toward the blade. A ratchet system shifted the log forward a measured step each cycle.
“Every component was simple on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to combine them in order that they operated in a perfectly controlled order, sawing on every downward motion and advancing with each upward stroke. It was a remarkably intelligent use of basic parts.”
Which brings us to the current challenge. I’d like you to reinvent a key the basic concepts underpinning this historic invention.
Round and Up
Design a machine that turns rotary motion to up-and-down action. You have these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or housing through which one of the rods will fit snugly. (Consider that you can mount components on a stand, so the parts do not collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK time featuring the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to propose (non obvious) candidates for the planet’s greatest creation.
