Can You Crack This? The Forgotten Netherlands Creation That Shaped our Modern World
There are numerous candidates for the title of “planet’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, however, that honor belongs to a automated timber mill invented through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel required around 10 lumberjacks laboring over 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same quantity of cut lumber could be produced in less than a week.”
Thanks to this rapid automated saw, which converted logs to boards using virtually no human effort, Dutch builders could construct vessels faster than any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, economic as well as artistic dominance across the continent and the globe.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Device
The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “humanity’s first authentic factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. A single part transformed its circular movement to up-and-down action for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed the spinning motion into a lateral movement feeding the timber to the blade. A ratchet system shifted the log ahead a measured step per stroke.
“Each element was simple by itself. The Dutchman’s genius was to integrate these parts in order that the machine acted within a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every downward motion while advancing with each upward stroke. It was an astonishingly clever use of fundamental parts.”
Which leads us to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts behind Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism that turns rotary movement into up-and-down motion. You have these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or sleeve into which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that you can mount components on a base, so that the parts do not collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK time with the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) contenders for the world’s greatest creation.
