Are You Able to Crack This? That Forgotten Dutch Invention That Shaped the Contemporary Globe
There are many candidates for the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
As per a recent publication, however, that honor should go to a mechanised timber mill invented by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before mechanised cutting, constructing a modest trading ship required approximately 10 sawyers laboring for three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same amount of processed timber might be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Thanks to their rapid mechanical cutter, that converted timber into planks using virtually no human effort, Dutch builders could construct ships faster than anyone else, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, financial as well as cultural dominance across the continent and the world.
The First True Manufacturing Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends Dávila, was “humanity’s first authentic factory machine.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part converted the circular movement to vertical motion for the saw. Another component transformed that same rotary movement into a lateral motion advancing the log to the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the wood forward a measured step per stroke.
“Every component was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius was to combine them in order that they acted in a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each downward motion and advancing with each return stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent use of basic parts.”
Which leads us up to today’s challenge. I’d like for you to reinvent a key the basic concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a mechanism that turns rotary motion to vertical motion. Your available these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing into which one of the rods can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so the components do not collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK time featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) candidates as the planet’s greatest invention.
