Can You Crack This? That Forgotten Netherlands Invention That Forged our Contemporary Globe
One can find many contenders for the title of “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a new book, however, that honor should go to a automated sawmill conceived through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, building a modest trading ship necessitated around ten sawyers working for 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be produced in less than a week.”
Owing to this rapid automated cutter, that converted logs to planks using almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to build ships faster than anyone else, an advantage that sparked a century of Netherlands maritime, economic as well as artistic supremacy across the continent and the globe.
The Original Genuine Industrial Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, contends Dávila, represented “humanity’s first authentic industrial machine.” A wind turbine turned a gear. One component converted the circular motion to vertical motion for the saw. Another component transformed the rotary motion into a lateral motion feeding the timber to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the wood forward a measured step each cycle.
“Every component was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius was to combine these parts so the machine operated in a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing with each downward motion while advancing on every upward motion. It was an astonishingly clever application of basic parts.”
A fact that leads us to the current puzzle. The task is for you to reinvent a key the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Round and Up
Design a machine that turns rotary motion to up-and-down motion. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or housing through which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so that the parts don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK time featuring the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to propose (non obvious) contenders for the world’s greatest creation.
