Can You Solve This? The Overlooked Netherlands Invention That Shaped our Modern Globe
There are numerous candidates for the title of “world’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
As per a new book, however, that honor should go to a mechanised timber mill invented through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before mechanised cutting, building a simple merchant vessel necessitated around ten sawyers working over three months,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical quantity of processed timber might be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Owing to their speedy mechanical saw, that converted logs into boards using almost no human effort, Dutch builders could build ships faster than anyone else, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, economic as well as cultural dominance in the continent and the world.
The First Genuine Industrial Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “mankind’s initial authentic industrial machine.” A wind turbine turned a gear. One component transformed its circular movement into up-and-down motion for the saw. Another component transformed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s motion feeding the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the wood ahead a measured step per cycle.
“Each element was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine them in order that the machine operated within a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each downward stroke and moving with each upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental components.”
A fact that leads us to the current puzzle. I’d like for you to reimagine a key the fundamental ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism which converts circular motion into vertical motion. You have these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or sleeve through which a single the rods will fit snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so the components don’t collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK time featuring the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please propose (non obvious) candidates for the planet’s greatest invention.
