Can You Crack This? The Overlooked Dutch Invention Which Shaped our Contemporary Globe
One can find numerous candidates to claim the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
As per a new book, though, that title should go to a mechanised timber mill invented through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated cutting, building a simple merchant vessel required around ten sawyers working for three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven lumber mills, an identical quantity of cut lumber might be manufactured within a week.”
Owing to their rapid automated cutter, which turned timber to boards with virtually no human effort, the Dutch were able to build ships more quickly compared to anyone else, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch naval, financial and cultural supremacy in Europe and the world.
The First Genuine Industrial Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, was “mankind’s first authentic factory machine.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part converted the rotary motion to vertical action for the saw. A separate mechanism transformed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s motion feeding the timber toward the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the log forward a measured step per stroke.
“Each element was simple by itself. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to integrate these parts in order that they acted in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every descending motion while advancing on every return motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of fundamental components.”
Which leads us to today’s challenge. I’d like you to reimagine a key the basic concepts underpinning this historic invention.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism which converts circular movement to up-and-down motion. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or sleeve into which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Assume you can put things on a base, so that the parts don’t fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK time featuring the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please suggest (less celebrated) candidates as the planet’s most impactful creation.
