Can You Solve It? The Forgotten Dutch Invention That Shaped the Modern World
One can find numerous candidates to claim the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
As per a recent publication, however, that honor belongs to a mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before mechanised cutting, constructing a modest merchant vessel required around 10 sawyers working over 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same quantity of processed timber might be manufactured within a week.”
Thanks to their rapid mechanical saw, that converted timber to boards with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could construct ships faster than anyone else, which sparked a century of Dutch maritime, economic and cultural dominance in Europe and the globe.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Device
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends the writer, was “mankind’s initial authentic industrial apparatus.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part transformed the rotary movement to vertical motion for the cutting blade. Another component transformed the spinning motion into a lateral motion advancing the log toward the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the log forward one precise increment each stroke.
“Every component was simple by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine these parts so the machine operated within a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each descending motion while moving on every return stroke. This constituted a remarkably intelligent application of basic components.”
Which brings us up to the current challenge. The task is for you to reinvent one of the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine that turns circular movement into up-and-down motion. Your available these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or sleeve into which a single the rods will fit perfectly. (Consider that you can mount components on a base, so the parts do not collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK with the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please propose (less celebrated) contenders for the planet’s greatest creation.
