Are You Able to Crack It? The Overlooked Netherlands Invention Which Forged the Contemporary Globe
One can find many candidates for the title of “world’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, though, that title belongs to a automated timber mill invented by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to automated cutting, constructing a simple trading ship required around 10 lumberjacks laboring for 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven sawmills, the same amount of cut lumber might be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Owing to this rapid automated saw, which turned logs to boards with virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders could construct ships more quickly than any other nation, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, economic and cultural supremacy across Europe and the world.
The Original True Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s initial true factory machine.” A windmill rotated a gear. One component converted its rotary motion to vertical action to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed that same rotary motion into a lateral movement feeding the log to the blade. A ratchet system moved the log ahead one precise increment per stroke.
“Every component seemed simple on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to integrate them in order that the machine operated in a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each descending motion and advancing with each upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of basic components.”
Which leads us to today’s challenge. I’d like for you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism which converts circular motion to up-and-down action. Your available these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or sleeve through which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Assume you can put things on a base, so the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the answer.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please suggest (non obvious) candidates as the world’s greatest creation.
