Can You Solve This? That Overlooked Dutch Creation Which Shaped the Modern World
One can find many contenders to claim the title of “planet’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a new book, however, that honor should go to a automated timber mill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised cutting, constructing a simple merchant vessel required around 10 lumberjacks working over 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven sawmills, the same amount of processed timber could be produced within seven days.”
Thanks to this speedy mechanical saw, which converted logs into boards with almost no manual labor, the Dutch could build ships more quickly compared to any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, economic as well as artistic supremacy in Europe and the globe.
The Original Genuine Manufacturing Device
The inventor's sawmill, contends Dávila, represented “mankind’s first authentic industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. One component converted its rotary movement to vertical motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed the rotary movement into a lateral motion feeding the timber to the blade. A ratchet system shifted the log forward one precise increment each stroke.
“Every component seemed simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius was to integrate these parts so the machine operated within a precisely synchronized order, cutting on every descending motion while moving with each upward motion. It was an astonishingly clever use of basic components.”
Which leads us up to today’s challenge. The task is you to reimagine a key the basic ideas behind this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a mechanism which converts circular motion into vertical action. Your available these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing through which a single the rods will fit perfectly. (Assume you can put things on a stand, so that the parts do not fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s greatest creation.
