Can You Solve It? That Overlooked Netherlands Invention Which Forged our Modern Globe
One can find numerous candidates to claim the designation as “world’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, though, that honor should go to a automated timber mill invented through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised cutting, building a simple merchant vessel necessitated around 10 sawyers laboring for 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same amount of cut lumber could be manufactured within seven days.”
Thanks to their rapid mechanical cutter, which turned logs into planks with almost no manual labor, Dutch builders could construct vessels faster than any other nation, which unleashed a century of Dutch naval, financial and artistic dominance in the continent and the world.
The Original True Manufacturing Device
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues the writer, represented “mankind’s first true factory machine.” A windmill turned a gear. A single part converted the rotary motion to vertical action for the saw. A separate mechanism transformed the rotary motion into a lateral motion feeding the log to the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the wood forward one precise increment per stroke.
“Each element was simple on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to integrate these parts so the machine operated within a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting with each descending motion while moving on every return motion. This constituted a remarkably intelligent application of fundamental components.”
Which brings us up to the current puzzle. I’d like for you to reinvent one of the basic concepts underpinning this historic invention.
Round and Up
Design a machine which converts rotary movement to vertical action. Your available these components only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or sleeve through which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a stand, so that the parts don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK with the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to propose (non obvious) candidates for the world’s greatest invention.
