Can You Crack This? The Overlooked Dutch Creation That Shaped the Modern World
One can find many candidates for the title of “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, however, that title belongs to the mechanised timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Before automated sawing, building a modest merchant vessel required around ten lumberjacks working for three months,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, an identical quantity of cut lumber could be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Owing to this speedy mechanical saw, which turned logs into planks with virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build ships more quickly compared to anyone else, which unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, economic as well as artistic dominance across Europe and the globe.
The First Genuine Industrial Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues Dávila, was “humanity’s initial true industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component transformed its rotary movement to vertical motion for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the rotary movement into a lateral motion feeding the timber to the blade. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead a measured step each cycle.
“Every component seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to integrate these parts so they operated in a precisely synchronized order, cutting on every downward stroke while advancing on every return stroke. It was a remarkably clever use of basic parts.”
Which brings us up to the current challenge. The task is for you to reimagine a key the basic ideas behind this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine which converts rotary movement into up-and-down motion. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or housing into which one of the bars can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a stand, so that the parts do not fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s most impactful invention.
