Can You Crack This? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Shaped our Modern Globe
One can find numerous candidates to claim the designation as “world’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a new book, though, that title belongs to a automated sawmill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Before mechanised cutting, building a simple merchant vessel required around 10 lumberjacks working for three months,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same amount of cut lumber could be produced in less than a week.”
Owing to this speedy mechanical cutter, which turned logs to planks using virtually no human effort, the Dutch could build vessels more quickly than any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, financial and cultural supremacy in the continent and the globe.
The Original True Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s initial authentic factory apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component transformed the circular motion into vertical motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed the spinning motion into a lateral motion advancing the log toward the blade. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead a measured step per stroke.
“Each element was modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to combine them in order that the machine operated within a perfectly controlled order, sawing with each descending stroke while advancing on every return stroke. It was a remarkably intelligent use of fundamental components.”
A fact that leads us up to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reinvent a key the basic ideas behind this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine that turns circular movement into up-and-down motion. You have these items only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing into which a single the bars can slide snugly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a base, so the parts don’t collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK time with the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders for the world’s most impactful invention.
