Can You Solve This? That Overlooked Netherlands Invention That Forged our Modern Globe
There are many contenders to claim the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
As per a new book, however, that honor should go to the automated timber mill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised cutting, constructing a simple merchant vessel required approximately ten sawyers laboring for three months,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, the same amount of cut lumber could be produced within seven days.”
Owing to this rapid mechanical saw, that converted logs into planks 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 supremacy across Europe and the world.
The First True Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s initial authentic industrial apparatus.” A windmill rotated a wheel. A single part transformed its circular motion to up-and-down action for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed that same rotary movement into a lateral motion feeding the log to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the wood forward one precise increment per cycle.
“Every component seemed modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to integrate these parts in order that the machine operated within a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing with each downward stroke and advancing on every upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental parts.”
A fact that leads us up to the current challenge. The task is you to reimagine a key the basic ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Construct a machine that turns rotary motion to up-and-down motion. Your available these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing through which one of the bars will fit perfectly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a base, so that the parts do not collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK time with the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please propose (non obvious) contenders as the world’s most impactful invention.
