Can You Crack This? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Forged our Modern Globe
There are many candidates for the designation as “planet’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a new book, however, that honor should go to a mechanised sawmill invented through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, building a simple merchant vessel required around ten lumberjacks laboring for three months,” notes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same amount of processed timber could be produced within a week.”
Owing to this rapid mechanical cutter, which converted logs to planks using virtually no human effort, the Dutch could build ships more quickly than anyone else, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands naval, financial and artistic dominance across Europe and the world.
The Original True Industrial Machine
The inventor's sawmill, argues the writer, represented “humanity’s initial authentic factory machine.” A windmill turned a gear. One component converted the rotary motion into up-and-down action for the cutting blade. Another component transformed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s movement advancing the timber to the blade. A ratchet system shifted the wood forward a measured step each stroke.
“Every component was modest by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine them so the machine operated in a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each descending motion and advancing on every return motion. This constituted a remarkably intelligent use of fundamental components.”
A fact that leads us up to today’s puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts behind this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a mechanism which converts circular movement to up-and-down action. Your available these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or sleeve through which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a stand, so the components don’t fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK time with the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please propose (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s greatest invention.
