Are You Able to Crack It? That Overlooked Dutch Creation That Forged the Contemporary World
One can find many candidates to claim the title of “planet’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
As per a new book, however, that title should go to a automated sawmill invented by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to automated cutting, constructing a simple trading ship required around 10 sawyers working for three months,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, an identical quantity of cut lumber might be manufactured within seven days.”
Owing to this rapid automated saw, that converted logs into planks using virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders could construct ships faster than anyone else, which unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, economic and cultural supremacy across Europe and the globe.
The First True Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends Dávila, was “mankind’s first true factory apparatus.” A windmill turned a gear. One component converted its rotary movement to vertical motion for the saw. Another component changed the rotary movement into a lateral movement advancing the log to the blade. A ratchet system moved the wood ahead a measured step each cycle.
“Every component was modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to integrate them in order that they acted within a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing with each downward stroke while moving on every return stroke. This constituted an astonishingly clever application of fundamental parts.”
A fact that brings us up to the current challenge. I’d like you to reinvent a key the fundamental concepts behind Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine that turns rotary motion into vertical action. You have these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing into which one of the bars will fit snugly. (Consider that you can mount components on a base, so that the components do not fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK time with the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) contenders as the world’s most impactful invention.
