Are You Able to Solve This? The Overlooked Dutch Invention That Forged our Contemporary Globe
One can find many contenders for the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, though, that title belongs to a automated timber mill invented by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated sawing, building a modest merchant vessel necessitated around 10 sawyers laboring over three months,” notes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of processed timber could be produced in less than seven days.”
Thanks to this speedy automated cutter, that turned logs into boards with almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to build vessels more quickly than any other nation, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch naval, financial and cultural dominance across the continent and the world.
The First True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's sawmill, contends the writer, was “mankind’s first authentic factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. A single part transformed the circular motion to up-and-down motion to power the saw. Another component changed the rotary motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the log toward the blade. A geared mechanism moved the log ahead one precise increment each stroke.
“Every component seemed simple on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to integrate these parts in order that the machine acted within a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each descending stroke and advancing with each return motion. It was a remarkably clever use of fundamental components.”
A fact that brings us to today’s challenge. I’d like for you to reimagine one of the basic ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine which converts circular motion to vertical action. You have these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing into which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a base, so that the components do not collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK time featuring the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please propose (non obvious) candidates for the world’s most impactful creation.
