Can You Solve This? That Overlooked Dutch Creation Which Forged our Contemporary World
There are many contenders for the title of “planet’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, however, that title belongs to the mechanised timber mill invented through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, building a modest merchant vessel required around 10 lumberjacks working for three months,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber could be produced in less than seven days.”
Owing to their speedy automated saw, that converted logs to planks using almost no human effort, Dutch builders were able to build ships faster compared to anyone else, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, economic and cultural supremacy across the continent and the globe.
The Original True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's sawmill, contends Dávila, represented “humanity’s initial authentic factory machine.” A windmill rotated a wheel. A single part converted the rotary motion into vertical motion to power the saw. Another component changed the spinning movement into a sideway’s movement advancing the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism moved the wood ahead a measured step each stroke.
“Each element seemed modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate these parts so the machine acted in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing with each descending motion and advancing with each upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental components.”
A fact that leads us up to the current puzzle. I’d like for you to reimagine one of the basic ideas underpinning this historic invention.
Round and Up
Construct a machine that turns rotary motion into vertical motion. Your available these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing into which one of the bars will fit snugly. (Consider that it is possible to mount components on a stand, so that the components don’t collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK featuring the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s greatest creation.
