Are You Able to Crack This? The Overlooked Netherlands Invention That Forged the Modern Globe
One can find many candidates to claim the title of “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, however, that honor belongs to the automated sawmill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel required around ten sawyers working over 90 days,” notes the author. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same amount of processed timber could be manufactured within a week.”
Thanks to their rapid mechanical saw, which converted logs into planks with almost no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to construct ships faster than any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch naval, economic and cultural supremacy across the continent and the world.
The Original True Manufacturing Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends Dávila, was “mankind’s initial authentic industrial machine.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. A single part converted its circular movement into vertical action for the saw. A separate mechanism changed the spinning movement into a sideway’s movement feeding the log toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log forward a measured step per cycle.
“Each element was modest by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to combine them in order that the machine operated within a perfectly controlled order, sawing on every downward motion while advancing with each upward stroke. It was an astonishingly clever use of fundamental parts.”
A fact that leads us up to the current puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent one of the basic ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a mechanism which converts rotary movement to up-and-down action. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve into which a single the rods will fit snugly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a stand, so the parts don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) candidates for the world’s greatest invention.
