Are You Able to Crack It? The Forgotten Dutch Creation That Shaped our Modern World
One can find many contenders for the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a new book, however, that honor belongs to a automated timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, constructing a simple trading ship required approximately ten sawyers laboring over three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same amount of cut lumber could be produced in less than a week.”
Owing to their speedy automated saw, which converted logs to planks with virtually no human effort, the Dutch could construct vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, which sparked a century of Netherlands naval, economic as well as cultural supremacy across Europe and the world.
The Original Genuine Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “humanity’s first authentic industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. A single part converted its circular motion into vertical motion for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed the rotary motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the log to the blade. A ratchet system moved the log ahead one precise increment each cycle.
“Each element was modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius was to integrate them so the machine acted within a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting with each downward stroke and moving with each return stroke. It was an astonishingly clever application of basic components.”
Which leads us up to today’s challenge. I’d like for you to reimagine one of the fundamental concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism which converts rotary motion to up-and-down action. You have these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or housing into which one of the bars will fit snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a stand, so that the components don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s greatest invention.
