Are You Able to Crack This? The Overlooked Dutch Invention That Forged our Contemporary World
There are numerous contenders for the designation as “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, however, that honor should go to a mechanised timber mill invented through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel required approximately 10 lumberjacks laboring for three months,” writes the author. “With wind-driven lumber mills, an identical amount of cut lumber might be manufactured within seven days.”
Thanks to this speedy mechanical saw, that converted timber to planks with virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders could build vessels faster compared to any other nation, which sparked a century of Dutch naval, economic as well as cultural supremacy across the continent and the globe.
The First Genuine Industrial Device
The inventor's sawmill, contends the writer, represented “humanity’s first authentic factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. A single part converted its rotary movement to up-and-down action for the cutting blade. Another component transformed the rotary motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the timber toward the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the log forward one precise increment per stroke.
“Each element was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to combine these parts in order that they operated within a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every descending motion while moving on every return stroke. This constituted an astonishingly clever use of basic parts.”
A fact that brings us up to the current challenge. I’d like you to reinvent one of the basic concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism which converts circular motion to up-and-down action. Your available these items only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or housing through which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a base, so the parts don’t fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK with the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to propose (non obvious) contenders as the world’s greatest creation.
