Are You Able to Crack This? The Forgotten Dutch Invention That Shaped our Modern World
One can find many contenders to claim the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, though, that honor belongs to the mechanised sawmill invented through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel required around ten lumberjacks laboring for 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same quantity of cut lumber could be produced in less than a week.”
Owing to this rapid automated cutter, which converted logs into planks using virtually no human effort, Dutch builders were able to construct ships faster than any other nation, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Dutch maritime, financial as well as artistic dominance in Europe and the globe.
The Original Genuine Industrial Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends Dávila, was “humanity’s first true factory machine.” A windmill turned a gear. A single part transformed its circular motion into vertical motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed the spinning movement into a sideway’s motion feeding the timber to the blade. A ratchet system moved the log forward a measured step each stroke.
“Every component was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius was to combine them in order that they operated within a perfectly controlled order, cutting on every descending stroke while advancing on every return stroke. It was an astonishingly clever use of basic parts.”
A fact that brings us up to the current challenge. The task is for you to reimagine one of the basic ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Design a machine that turns rotary motion to vertical action. You have these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing into which one of the bars can slide perfectly. (Assume you can mount components on a stand, so that the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s most impactful invention.
