Can You Crack It? That Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Shaped our Contemporary World
There are many candidates for the designation as “world’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, though, that title should go to the mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to automated cutting, building a simple merchant vessel required around 10 lumberjacks laboring over three months,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, the same amount of cut lumber could be produced within a week.”
Thanks to this speedy automated saw, that turned logs into planks with virtually no human effort, the Dutch could construct ships more quickly than anyone else, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, economic as well as cultural supremacy across Europe and the world.
The First True Manufacturing Device
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, represented “mankind’s first authentic industrial machine.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component converted the circular movement to up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed the rotary motion into a lateral motion feeding the timber toward the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead a measured step each cycle.
“Every component seemed modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius was to combine them in order that the machine operated within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting with each downward motion while moving with each upward motion. It was a remarkably intelligent use of basic parts.”
Which brings us to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reimagine one of the basic ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine which converts circular motion into up-and-down action. You have these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or sleeve through which one of the rods will fit perfectly. (Consider that you can mount components on a base, so that the components don’t fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK with the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the planet’s most impactful creation.
