Can You Solve This? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Forged the Modern Globe
One can find many contenders for the title of “world’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, however, that title belongs to a automated timber mill conceived through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Before automated sawing, building a simple merchant vessel necessitated around ten sawyers laboring over 90 days,” notes the author. “With wind-powered lumber mills, the same amount of processed timber might be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Owing to their rapid automated cutter, that turned logs to planks with almost no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build vessels more quickly compared to any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, economic and cultural supremacy across Europe and the globe.
The Original True Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s initial true industrial apparatus.” A windmill turned a gear. A single part converted its rotary movement to up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same spinning motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the log toward the blade. A ratchet system shifted the log ahead a measured step per cycle.
“Every component seemed simple on its own. The Dutchman’s genius was to combine these parts so the machine operated in a precisely synchronized order, cutting on every downward stroke and moving on every return motion. It was a remarkably intelligent use of basic parts.”
A fact that brings us up to the current challenge. I’d like for you to reimagine a key the fundamental ideas behind this historic machine.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism that turns circular movement to up-and-down motion. Your available these components only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or housing through which one of the bars can slide perfectly. (Assume you can mount components on a base, so the parts don’t collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK time featuring the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the planet’s greatest invention.
