Can You Solve This? That Forgotten Netherlands Creation That Shaped the Modern World
There are many contenders to claim the designation as “world’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, however, that honor should go to the mechanised sawmill conceived through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, building a modest merchant vessel required around ten lumberjacks working over 90 days,” notes the author. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same amount of cut lumber could be produced within seven days.”
Owing to this rapid automated cutter, which turned timber into boards using virtually no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct ships more quickly compared to any other nation, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, economic as well as cultural supremacy across Europe and the globe.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s initial true factory apparatus.” A windmill rotated a wheel. A single part converted its circular movement to vertical action to power the cutting blade. Another component transformed the spinning movement into a sideway’s movement advancing the log to the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the wood ahead one precise increment each stroke.
“Each element seemed simple by itself. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to integrate them in order that the machine operated in a perfectly controlled order, sawing on every descending stroke and advancing with each return motion. This constituted an astonishingly clever application of basic components.”
A fact that brings us to today’s challenge. I’d like you to reinvent one of the fundamental ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism which converts rotary movement into vertical action. You have these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or housing through which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a base, so that the components don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to propose (non obvious) candidates as the world’s most impactful invention.
