Are You Able to Solve This? The Forgotten Dutch Invention That Shaped the Contemporary World
There are numerous candidates for the title of “planet’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, though, that honor should go to the automated sawmill invented by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised cutting, building a simple trading ship required approximately ten lumberjacks working over three months,” notes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of processed timber could be manufactured in less than a week.”
Thanks to this rapid automated saw, which turned logs to boards using almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct vessels more quickly than any other nation, which unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, financial as well as cultural dominance in the continent and the world.
The Original True Industrial Device
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, represented “mankind’s initial true industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. A single part converted the circular motion to vertical motion for the saw. Another component changed the rotary motion into a lateral movement feeding the timber to the blade. A geared mechanism moved the log forward a measured step each cycle.
“Every component seemed simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to integrate them so they operated in a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting with each downward motion while moving on every return stroke. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of basic components.”
A fact that brings us up to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reinvent a key the fundamental ideas behind Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Design a machine that turns rotary motion to up-and-down action. Your available these components only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or sleeve into which a single the bars will fit snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a stand, so the components don’t collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK time featuring the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please propose (non obvious) candidates as the planet’s greatest invention.
