Can You Solve This? The Overlooked Dutch Invention Which Forged the Contemporary Globe
One can find numerous candidates for the title of “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, though, that honor should go to a automated timber mill invented through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to automated cutting, constructing a simple merchant vessel required approximately 10 lumberjacks laboring for 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber could be produced within seven days.”
Owing to this rapid automated cutter, which converted timber into planks using almost no manual labor, the Dutch could build vessels more quickly than any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, financial as well as cultural supremacy across the continent and the globe.
The First True Industrial Device
The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “mankind’s initial authentic industrial machine.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. One component converted the circular motion into vertical motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed the rotary movement into a lateral movement advancing the log to the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead a measured step each cycle.
“Each element seemed simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to combine them in order that they acted in a perfectly controlled order, cutting with each descending motion and advancing on every return motion. This constituted a remarkably intelligent application of basic parts.”
Which brings us up to today’s puzzle. The task is for you to reimagine one of the basic ideas underpinning this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine which converts rotary movement to vertical action. Your available these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or sleeve through which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a stand, so that the parts do not collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK time featuring the answer.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s most impactful invention.
