Can You Crack This? That Forgotten Dutch Creation Which Forged the Contemporary Globe
One can find numerous candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, though, that honor belongs to the automated sawmill conceived by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Prior to automated cutting, constructing a simple merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten lumberjacks laboring for 90 days,” notes the author. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, an identical quantity of cut lumber could be produced within seven days.”
Thanks to their rapid mechanical saw, which converted logs to planks using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, an advantage that sparked a century of Netherlands naval, economic and cultural dominance across Europe and the globe.
The First Genuine Industrial Machine
The inventor's sawmill, argues Dávila, represented “mankind’s initial true industrial apparatus.” A windmill rotated a gear. One component transformed the circular motion to vertical motion to power the cutting blade. Another component changed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s movement feeding the log toward the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the wood ahead one precise increment each stroke.
“Every component seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius was to combine them in order that they operated within a perfectly controlled order, cutting on every descending stroke and moving with each return stroke. It was a remarkably intelligent use of basic parts.”
A fact that leads us to the current challenge. I’d like for you to reimagine one of the basic concepts underpinning this historic machine.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism which converts circular motion to vertical action. Your available these components only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or housing through which a single the rods will fit perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so that the parts don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to propose (less celebrated) candidates as the planet’s most impactful creation.
