Are You Able to Crack It? That Forgotten Dutch Creation Which Shaped the Contemporary World
One can find numerous contenders for the designation as “world’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, however, that title should go to the mechanised timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Before automated sawing, constructing a modest trading ship necessitated around 10 sawyers working over three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven lumber mills, the same amount of cut lumber might be manufactured within seven days.”
Thanks to their rapid automated saw, that converted timber to planks using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch were able to build ships faster than any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, financial and artistic dominance in the continent and the globe.
The Original True Industrial Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues Dávila, was “mankind’s initial authentic factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component transformed the circular motion into up-and-down action for the saw. A separate mechanism transformed that same spinning motion into a lateral movement feeding the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism moved the wood forward one precise increment each stroke.
“Each element was simple by itself. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to combine them in order that the machine operated in a precisely synchronized order, cutting on every downward motion and moving with each upward motion. It was an astonishingly clever application of fundamental parts.”
Which brings us to the current puzzle. I’d like for you to reinvent a key the basic concepts behind this historic invention.
Round and Up
Construct a machine which converts rotary movement into vertical action. Your available these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a tube or housing into which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so that the parts don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK featuring the answer.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the planet’s most impactful invention.
