Are You Able to Solve This? That Overlooked Dutch Invention That Forged our Modern World
There are many candidates to claim the title of “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that title should go to the automated sawmill invented by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before automated cutting, building a simple trading ship necessitated approximately ten sawyers laboring over three months,” notes the author. “With wind-powered sawmills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be manufactured in less than a week.”
Thanks to their rapid mechanical cutter, that converted logs to boards using almost no human effort, Dutch builders could build vessels faster than any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands naval, financial as well as cultural dominance in Europe and the globe.
The Original True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s first true industrial machine.” A windmill rotated a wheel. A single part converted the circular motion into up-and-down motion to power the saw. Another component changed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the log toward the blade. A ratchet system moved the wood forward a measured step each cycle.
“Every component was simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to integrate these parts so they operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every downward stroke while advancing on every return stroke. It was an astonishingly clever use of fundamental components.”
Which leads us to the current puzzle. The task is you to reinvent one of the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic invention.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism which converts rotary motion into vertical action. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or sleeve into which a single the bars will fit perfectly. (Assume you can mount components on a base, so that the parts don’t collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (non obvious) candidates for the planet’s most impactful creation.
