Can You Solve It? That Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Forged our Contemporary World
One can find many candidates to claim the title of “world’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a new book, however, that title belongs to the automated timber mill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, constructing a simple trading ship required around ten lumberjacks laboring over 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same amount of cut lumber could be produced in less than a week.”
Thanks to their rapid automated saw, that converted logs into boards with almost no manual labor, Dutch builders could build vessels more quickly than any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, economic and cultural supremacy in Europe and the globe.
The Original True Industrial Machine
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends Dávila, was “humanity’s first true factory apparatus.” A windmill turned a wheel. One component converted the rotary movement to vertical action for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed that same spinning motion into a sideway’s motion advancing the timber toward the blade. A ratchet system moved the wood ahead one precise increment each cycle.
“Each element was simple by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to integrate them so the machine operated within a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every downward motion while advancing on every return stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of basic parts.”
Which brings us to the current challenge. I’d like you to reimagine a key the fundamental concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a mechanism which converts circular motion to up-and-down motion. You have these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or housing into which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to mount components on a stand, so the components don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK time featuring the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the planet’s most impactful creation.
