Can You Crack This? That Forgotten Netherlands Invention That Shaped our Modern World
One can find many candidates for the designation as “planet’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
As per a recent publication, however, that title should go to a mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before automated cutting, constructing a modest merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten sawyers working for 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of processed timber might be manufactured within seven days.”
Owing to this speedy mechanical saw, that turned timber to planks using almost no human effort, the Dutch were able to build ships more quickly than anyone else, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands naval, economic as well as cultural supremacy in the continent and the world.
The Original Genuine Industrial Device
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s initial true factory apparatus.” A windmill turned a gear. A single part transformed its rotary movement into up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. Another component changed that same spinning motion into a lateral motion advancing the timber to the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the log ahead one precise increment each cycle.
“Each element seemed simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to integrate them in order that the machine operated in a precisely synchronized order, cutting on every descending motion and advancing with each return motion. It was an astonishingly clever application of basic parts.”
A fact that leads us to the current challenge. I’d like you to reinvent one of the basic concepts behind this historic machine.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism that turns circular motion to up-and-down action. You have these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing into which one of the rods will fit perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so that the components do not fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK featuring the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s most impactful invention.
