Can You Solve This? The Forgotten Dutch Invention That Forged our Contemporary Globe
One can find numerous candidates to claim the title of “planet’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a new book, though, that honor belongs to a automated timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, building a simple merchant vessel necessitated around 10 lumberjacks working for 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same quantity of cut lumber could be produced in less than a week.”
Thanks to their rapid automated saw, that converted timber to boards with almost no human effort, Dutch builders were able to construct ships more quickly than anyone else, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, financial and cultural supremacy across the continent and the world.
The Original True Industrial Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, contends Dávila, represented “humanity’s initial true factory machine.” A windmill rotated a wheel. A single part transformed the rotary motion to up-and-down motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism changed that same rotary motion into a lateral motion advancing the log toward the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the wood ahead one precise increment per cycle.
“Each element was simple on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to integrate them in order that the machine operated within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting on every descending stroke while moving with each return motion. It was a remarkably intelligent application of basic parts.”
A fact that brings us up to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reinvent one of the basic ideas behind Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine which converts rotary movement to up-and-down action. You have these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or housing into which one of the bars can slide perfectly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a base, so that the parts don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please propose (less celebrated) candidates as the planet’s most impactful creation.
