Are You Able to Solve This? That Overlooked Dutch Invention Which Shaped our Contemporary Globe
There are numerous contenders to claim the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, however, that title should go to a automated timber mill invented through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, building a simple merchant vessel required around 10 sawyers working for three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of cut lumber could be manufactured in less than a week.”
Owing to their speedy mechanical saw, which converted logs to boards using virtually no human effort, Dutch builders could build vessels faster than any other nation, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Dutch naval, economic and artistic dominance in the continent and the globe.
The First Genuine Industrial Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, contends Dávila, was “humanity’s initial true industrial machine.” A windmill turned a gear. One component converted its rotary movement to vertical action for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the log to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the wood ahead a measured step per stroke.
“Every component was simple by itself. The Dutchman’s genius was to combine these parts in order that they operated in a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing with each descending motion while moving with each return motion. This constituted a remarkably clever application of fundamental parts.”
Which brings us up to the current challenge. The task is you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine which converts circular movement into vertical action. Your available these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or sleeve into which one of the rods will fit snugly. (Assume you can mount components on a stand, so the components don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK featuring the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders for the world’s greatest invention.
