Can You Solve This? The Forgotten Netherlands Invention That Shaped our Contemporary World
There are many contenders for the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, though, that honor belongs to the automated sawmill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised cutting, building a simple trading ship required approximately 10 sawyers laboring over 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be produced in less than a week.”
Owing to this rapid automated cutter, which converted timber to planks with virtually no human effort, Dutch builders were able to build ships more quickly than any other nation, an advantage that sparked a century of Dutch maritime, financial as well as artistic dominance in the continent and the world.
The Original Genuine Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, represented “mankind’s initial true industrial machine.” A wind turbine turned a gear. A single part transformed its rotary motion into up-and-down motion for the saw. Another component changed the spinning movement into a lateral movement feeding the timber toward the blade. A ratchet system moved the wood forward one precise increment per stroke.
“Every component seemed modest by itself. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to combine them so they operated within a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every descending motion and advancing with each upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental parts.”
Which brings us up to the current puzzle. The task is for you to reimagine one of the fundamental ideas behind this historic machine.
Round and Up
Design a machine that turns rotary motion to vertical action. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or housing into which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a base, so the components do not fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK time with the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to propose (less celebrated) candidates as the world’s most impactful invention.
