Can You Crack It? The Forgotten Dutch Creation That Forged the Modern Globe
There are many candidates for the designation as “planet’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that honor belongs to a automated timber mill invented through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, constructing a simple merchant vessel required approximately 10 sawyers working for three months,” writes the author. “With wind-powered sawmills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be produced in less than seven days.”
Owing to this rapid automated cutter, that turned timber into planks using almost no human effort, the Dutch could construct ships more quickly than anyone else, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Dutch naval, economic and cultural supremacy in Europe and the world.
The First True Manufacturing Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues Dávila, was “humanity’s initial true factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. One component transformed its rotary motion to vertical motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed that same rotary movement into a lateral movement feeding the log toward the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the wood forward one precise increment each cycle.
“Every component seemed simple by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to combine these parts in order that the machine operated in a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each downward motion while advancing on every return stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent use of basic components.”
A fact that brings us up to the current puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent one of the basic concepts underpinning this historic machine.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism that turns circular motion to up-and-down motion. You have these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing through which one of the bars will fit snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so that the components do not fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK with the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s greatest invention.
