Can You Crack This? The Overlooked Dutch Invention That Shaped the Modern Globe
There are numerous candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, though, that title should go to a automated timber mill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated sawing, constructing a modest trading ship required approximately 10 lumberjacks working over three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber could be produced in less than a week.”
Thanks to this speedy automated saw, that turned timber to planks using almost no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build ships more quickly than any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch naval, economic as well as artistic supremacy in the continent and the world.
The First True Industrial Device
The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s first true industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. One component transformed its circular movement into vertical motion for the saw. A separate mechanism transformed the rotary movement into a sideway’s motion feeding the log to the blade. A ratchet system moved the wood ahead a measured step per cycle.
“Each element was modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to integrate them so the machine operated in a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting on every downward motion and moving with each return motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental components.”
A fact that brings us to today’s challenge. The task is you to reimagine a key the basic ideas behind this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine which converts rotary motion into up-and-down motion. You have these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing through which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can mount components on a base, so that the components do not collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please suggest (non obvious) candidates as the world’s greatest invention.
