Are You Able to Crack This? That Overlooked Netherlands Invention That Shaped the Modern Globe
There are numerous candidates for the designation as “planet’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, however, that honor belongs to the automated timber mill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, building a simple merchant vessel necessitated around ten sawyers laboring for 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber could be manufactured within a week.”
Thanks to this rapid automated saw, that converted timber into planks with almost no manual labor, Dutch builders could construct vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, which unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, economic and cultural dominance across Europe and the globe.
The Original True Manufacturing Device
The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s first authentic industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. One component converted the rotary movement to up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed the spinning motion into a sideway’s movement advancing the log to the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the log forward a measured step per cycle.
“Each element was modest on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to integrate these parts so they acted in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every downward stroke while advancing with each upward motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental components.”
Which brings us to the current puzzle. The task is for you to reinvent a key the basic ideas behind Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism that turns rotary movement to vertical motion. You have these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve into which one of the rods will fit perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a stand, so that the components don’t collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK featuring the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) candidates for the planet’s most impactful invention.
