Can You Solve This? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Shaped the Contemporary Globe
One can find many contenders for the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, though, that honor belongs to the mechanised timber mill conceived through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel required approximately 10 lumberjacks laboring for three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, the same amount of cut lumber could be manufactured in less than a week.”
Owing to this speedy mechanical saw, which turned timber into boards using virtually no human effort, Dutch builders were able to construct vessels faster compared to anyone else, which sparked one hundred years of Dutch naval, financial and cultural dominance in the continent and the world.
The First Genuine Industrial Device
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s first true factory apparatus.” A windmill rotated a wheel. A single part transformed its circular movement to up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. Another component transformed the spinning motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the timber toward the cutter. A ratchet system moved the log forward a measured step each cycle.
“Each element seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to combine them so the machine acted in a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every descending motion and advancing on every return stroke. It was a remarkably intelligent use of fundamental components.”
A fact that brings us to today’s puzzle. I’d like for you to reimagine one of the basic ideas behind this historic invention.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism which converts rotary movement to up-and-down motion. Your available these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a tube or sleeve into which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that you can mount components on a base, so that the parts do not collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK time with the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) candidates for the world’s greatest invention.
