Can You Solve This? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Shaped the Contemporary World
There are numerous contenders for the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that honor belongs to the automated timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel required approximately ten lumberjacks laboring for three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same amount of cut lumber could be manufactured within seven days.”
Owing to their rapid mechanical cutter, which converted timber to boards using almost no manual labor, Dutch builders could construct vessels more quickly than anyone else, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch naval, economic as well as cultural dominance in the continent and the world.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Device
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s initial true factory apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. One component transformed the rotary motion to up-and-down action to power the saw. A separate mechanism changed the spinning movement into a lateral motion advancing the log toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log ahead one precise increment per cycle.
“Every component seemed modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate them so they acted within a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each downward motion while moving with each return motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent application of basic components.”
Which brings us up to today’s puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent one of the basic concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine that turns rotary motion into up-and-down action. Your available these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or sleeve through which one of the rods will fit perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a stand, so the components don’t collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK featuring the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s greatest creation.
