Can You Solve This? That Forgotten Netherlands Creation That Forged our Modern Globe
There are numerous candidates to claim the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, however, that honor should go to a mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Before automated cutting, building a modest trading ship required around ten lumberjacks working for three months,” writes the author. “With wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of cut lumber might be manufactured within seven days.”
Thanks to this speedy mechanical cutter, which turned logs into boards using almost no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build ships faster than any other nation, which sparked a century of Dutch maritime, economic as well as cultural dominance across Europe and the world.
The Original Genuine Manufacturing Device
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues the writer, represented “humanity’s first authentic factory machine.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part transformed its circular motion into up-and-down action for the saw. A separate mechanism changed the rotary motion into a lateral movement advancing the timber to the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the wood ahead one precise increment per stroke.
“Each element seemed simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius was to combine these parts in order that they operated in a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting on every descending motion and moving with each upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly clever application of basic parts.”
A fact that leads us up to today’s puzzle. I’d like you to reimagine one of the basic ideas behind Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Design a machine which converts rotary motion to up-and-down motion. Your available these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or housing into which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a stand, so the components don’t collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s most impactful invention.
