Can You Crack This? The Forgotten Netherlands Invention Which Shaped our Modern World
One can find many contenders for the title of “planet’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, though, that title should go to the mechanised timber mill invented through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel required around ten lumberjacks laboring for three months,” writes the author. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of cut lumber could be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Owing to their speedy mechanical cutter, which converted logs to boards with virtually no human effort, the Dutch were able to build vessels more quickly than anyone else, which unleashed a century of Netherlands maritime, financial as well as artistic dominance in Europe and the globe.
The Original True Manufacturing Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “humanity’s first true industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a gear. One component transformed its rotary motion to vertical action to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s movement advancing the timber toward the cutter. A ratchet system moved the log forward one precise increment each cycle.
“Every component was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius was to combine these parts so they operated in a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each downward motion and advancing on every upward stroke. This constituted a remarkably clever use of fundamental parts.”
A fact that leads us up to today’s puzzle. I’d like for you to reimagine one of the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism which converts rotary motion to vertical motion. You have these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or sleeve through which one of the bars will fit snugly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a stand, so that the parts don’t collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK featuring the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (non obvious) candidates as the world’s most impactful invention.
