Can You Solve It? The Overlooked Dutch Invention That Forged the Modern Globe
There are many candidates to claim the title of “planet’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a new book, though, that honor should go to a mechanised sawmill invented by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to automated cutting, constructing a modest merchant vessel required around 10 sawyers working over three months,” writes the author. “With wind-driven lumber mills, an identical amount of processed timber might be manufactured within a week.”
Owing to this speedy mechanical cutter, which turned timber into boards using virtually no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct ships more quickly than anyone else, which unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, economic and artistic supremacy in the continent and the globe.
The Original Genuine Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s initial authentic factory apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. A single part converted its circular movement to up-and-down action for the cutting blade. Another component changed the rotary motion into a sideway’s motion advancing the log toward the cutter. A ratchet system moved the log ahead one precise increment per cycle.
“Every component seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to integrate them in order that the machine operated within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting on every descending motion and advancing with each return motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of fundamental parts.”
Which leads us up to today’s challenge. I’d like you to reimagine one of the basic ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a mechanism which converts rotary motion into vertical motion. Your available these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve through which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Assume you can put things on a base, so that the parts do not fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK time with the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please propose (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s greatest invention.
