Can You Crack This? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Shaped the Modern World
There are numerous candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.
As per a new book, however, that title should go to a automated sawmill conceived through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, building a modest merchant vessel required around ten lumberjacks laboring for three months,” notes the author. “With wind-driven sawmills, the same quantity of cut lumber could be manufactured within seven days.”
Owing to this speedy automated cutter, which turned logs into planks using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could build ships more quickly than any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch naval, financial and cultural supremacy in the continent and the world.
The First Genuine Industrial Device
The inventor's sawmill, contends the writer, represented “mankind’s initial true industrial machine.” A windmill turned a wheel. One component converted its circular motion into up-and-down motion for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the spinning movement into a lateral movement feeding the timber to the blade. A ratchet system moved the wood forward one precise increment per stroke.
“Each element was modest by itself. The Dutchman’s genius was to integrate these parts in order that they operated in a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each descending stroke while moving on every return stroke. This constituted a remarkably clever application of fundamental components.”
A fact that brings us to the current puzzle. The task is you to reimagine a key the fundamental concepts underpinning this historic invention.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism which converts rotary motion to vertical motion. Your available these items only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing through which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a stand, so the components don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK with the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s greatest invention.