Can You Crack It? That Forgotten Dutch Creation That Shaped the Modern World
There are many contenders for the designation as “planet’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
As per a new book, however, that title belongs to a mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, building a modest trading ship required around ten sawyers laboring over 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same amount of cut lumber might be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Owing to this rapid automated saw, that converted logs into planks using virtually no human effort, Dutch builders could build vessels faster compared to any other nation, which sparked a century of Netherlands maritime, economic and cultural dominance in Europe and the world.
The Original True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, contends Dávila, was “humanity’s initial true industrial machine.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. One component converted its rotary motion into up-and-down action to power the saw. A separate mechanism changed the spinning movement into a lateral motion advancing the log toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the wood forward a measured step each cycle.
“Each element seemed modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate these parts in order that the machine operated within a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting on every descending motion and advancing with each return stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of basic parts.”
A fact that brings us to today’s challenge. I’d like you to reinvent a key the basic concepts underpinning this historic invention.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism that turns rotary motion to vertical action. You have these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a tube or housing through which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so that the components don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK time with the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s most impactful invention.
