Can You Solve It? That Overlooked Dutch Creation Which Forged the Contemporary World
There are many contenders to claim the title of “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a new book, though, that honor should go to the automated timber mill invented by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, building a simple trading ship required approximately ten sawyers laboring over 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber might be produced within a week.”
Owing to their rapid mechanical saw, that converted timber to planks with almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct vessels faster than any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands naval, financial as well as artistic dominance across Europe and the globe.
The First True Manufacturing Device
The inventor's lumber mill, contends Dávila, represented “mankind’s initial authentic factory apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. One component transformed its circular motion into up-and-down motion for the saw. A separate mechanism changed the spinning movement into a lateral movement feeding the timber to the blade. A geared mechanism moved the log forward one precise increment per cycle.
“Every component seemed modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to combine these parts in order that they acted within a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing with each descending motion and moving with each upward motion. This constituted a remarkably intelligent use of basic components.”
Which brings us to the current challenge. The task is you to reimagine one of the basic concepts behind Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Construct a machine which converts circular movement to vertical action. You have these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing through which a single the rods can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can mount components on a base, so that the components don’t collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK time featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (non obvious) candidates as the world’s greatest invention.
