Can You Crack This? That Overlooked Dutch Invention Which Forged the Contemporary World
One can find many candidates for the designation as “world’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.
As per a new book, however, that honor belongs to a mechanised timber mill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated sawing, building a simple merchant vessel necessitated approximately 10 sawyers working over 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven lumber mills, an identical quantity of processed timber might be produced in less than a week.”
Owing to their speedy mechanical cutter, that turned timber to boards using virtually no human effort, Dutch builders were able to build vessels more quickly than anyone else, which sparked a century of Dutch maritime, financial and cultural supremacy in Europe and the globe.
The First True Industrial Machine
The inventor's sawmill, contends Dávila, represented “humanity’s first true factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component transformed the circular motion to vertical motion for the saw. A separate mechanism transformed that same rotary movement into a lateral motion feeding the log toward the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the log ahead one precise increment each stroke.
“Each element seemed simple by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to combine them in order that the machine acted within a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing with each descending stroke and moving on every return stroke. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of basic components.”
A fact that leads us up to today’s challenge. I’d like you to reimagine a key the basic ideas underpinning this historic invention.
Round and Up
Design a machine which converts circular motion into vertical action. Your available these components only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or sleeve into which a single the bars will fit snugly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a stand, so the components don’t collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK time with the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s greatest invention.