Can You Solve This? That Overlooked Dutch Creation That Shaped the Contemporary Globe
One can find many contenders for the designation as “planet’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, though, that title belongs to the mechanised timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before automated sawing, building a modest merchant vessel required around ten lumberjacks laboring over 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, the same amount of cut lumber could be produced in less than a week.”
Thanks to their speedy automated saw, which converted logs to boards using almost no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build ships faster than any other nation, an advantage that sparked a century of Dutch naval, financial as well as cultural dominance across Europe and the globe.
The Original True Manufacturing Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s initial authentic industrial machine.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part transformed the rotary movement into vertical action to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s movement feeding the timber toward the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the log forward one precise increment each cycle.
“Each element was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to integrate them in order that they acted within a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting with each downward stroke while moving on every upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly clever application of fundamental parts.”
A fact that brings us to the current challenge. I’d like for you to reimagine a key the fundamental concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a mechanism which converts circular motion to up-and-down motion. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing into which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a stand, so the components don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please propose (non obvious) candidates for the world’s greatest invention.
