Can You Crack It? The Forgotten Netherlands Creation Which Forged the Contemporary Globe
There are many candidates to claim the title of “world’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that title should go to the mechanised timber mill conceived through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Before mechanised cutting, constructing a simple merchant vessel necessitated approximately 10 lumberjacks laboring over three months,” writes the author. “With wind-driven lumber mills, an identical quantity of cut lumber might be produced in less than a week.”
Owing to this speedy automated saw, which converted logs to boards with virtually no human effort, Dutch builders were able to construct vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, which unleashed a century of Dutch naval, economic and cultural dominance across the continent and the globe.
The Original Genuine Industrial Device
The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “mankind’s first authentic factory apparatus.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part converted its circular movement to up-and-down action to power the cutting blade. Another component changed the rotary motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log forward one precise increment each stroke.
“Each element seemed simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to integrate them so the machine operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every downward motion and advancing with each upward motion. This constituted a remarkably intelligent application of basic parts.”
Which leads us up to the current puzzle. The task is for you to reimagine one of the fundamental ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine which converts circular motion into vertical action. You have these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or sleeve through which a single the bars will fit perfectly. (Assume you can put things on a base, so that the components don’t fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK time featuring the answer.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to propose (non obvious) candidates for the planet’s most impactful invention.
