Are You Able to Solve This? That Forgotten Netherlands Invention That Forged our Modern Globe
One can find many contenders for the title of “planet’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
As per a new book, though, that title should go to the mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, constructing a modest trading ship necessitated around 10 lumberjacks working for three months,” notes the author. “With wind-powered sawmills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be produced in less than seven days.”
Owing to their speedy automated cutter, which turned logs into boards with virtually no human effort, the Dutch could construct vessels more quickly compared to any other nation, an advantage that sparked a century of Netherlands naval, economic as well as artistic dominance across the continent and the globe.
The Original Genuine Industrial Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “humanity’s initial true factory apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. One component converted the rotary movement into up-and-down action to power the cutting blade. Another component changed that same spinning motion into a sideway’s movement advancing the log toward the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the log forward a measured step each cycle.
“Each element seemed modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine these parts in order that they acted within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting on every descending motion while advancing on every return stroke. This constituted a remarkably clever use of fundamental parts.”
A fact that leads us up to today’s puzzle. I’d like for you to reimagine a key the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Round and Up
Design a machine that turns rotary motion into vertical motion. Your available these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing into which a single the rods will fit snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so the components don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time featuring the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the planet’s greatest creation.