Are You Able to Crack It? The Forgotten Netherlands Invention Which Shaped our Modern Globe
There are numerous candidates to claim the title of “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, however, that title belongs to the mechanised sawmill invented by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before automated sawing, building a modest trading ship required around ten sawyers working over three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven lumber mills, the same amount of processed timber might be manufactured within seven days.”
Thanks to their rapid mechanical saw, which converted logs into boards with almost no human effort, the Dutch could construct vessels more quickly than any other nation, which sparked a century of Dutch naval, financial and artistic supremacy across Europe and the globe.
The First True Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends the writer, was “mankind’s initial authentic factory machine.” A windmill rotated a wheel. A single part converted its rotary motion into up-and-down action to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same rotary motion into a lateral movement feeding the log to the blade. A ratchet system moved the wood forward one precise increment per stroke.
“Every component seemed simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine them so they acted in a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each downward motion and moving with each upward motion. It was an astonishingly clever application of basic parts.”
Which brings us to the current challenge. I’d like you to reimagine a key the basic ideas behind this historic machine.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism which converts circular motion into up-and-down motion. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or sleeve into which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the solution.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the planet’s greatest creation.
