Are You Able to Solve This? The Forgotten Netherlands Creation That Forged our Contemporary World
There are many candidates for the title of “planet’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that honor belongs to the mechanised sawmill invented through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, constructing a modest trading ship necessitated around ten sawyers working over three months,” notes the author. “With wind-driven lumber mills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Owing to this rapid mechanical saw, which turned timber into boards with almost no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build ships more quickly compared to any other nation, an advantage that sparked a century of Netherlands naval, financial and artistic dominance across the continent and the world.
The First Genuine Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s initial true factory machine.” A windmill rotated a wheel. One component transformed the rotary movement to vertical action for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same spinning movement into a lateral motion advancing the log toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log forward a measured step per stroke.
“Each element seemed modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to combine these parts so the machine operated within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting with each descending stroke while advancing on every return motion. It was an astonishingly clever use of fundamental parts.”
Which brings us up to today’s challenge. I’d like for you to reimagine one of the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic invention.
Round and Up
Construct a machine which converts rotary motion to up-and-down motion. You have these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or housing into which one of the bars can slide snugly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a stand, so that the components do not collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK featuring the answer.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s most impactful invention.
