Are You Able to Crack It? That Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Shaped our Modern Globe
One can find numerous candidates to claim the title of “world’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, though, that honor should go to the mechanised timber mill invented by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before mechanised cutting, constructing a modest merchant vessel required approximately ten sawyers laboring over 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same amount of processed timber might be produced within a week.”
Thanks to this rapid mechanical saw, that turned timber to planks with virtually no human effort, the Dutch could build ships more quickly than any other nation, which sparked a century of Dutch maritime, financial as well as cultural dominance across Europe and the globe.
The Original True Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues Dávila, represented “mankind’s first true industrial machine.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. A single part transformed its circular movement to vertical action for the saw. Another component changed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s motion feeding the timber toward the blade. A ratchet system moved the log forward one precise increment per cycle.
“Every component was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to integrate these parts in order that they operated in a perfectly controlled order, cutting with each descending stroke and moving with each upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly clever use of basic components.”
A fact that leads us up to today’s challenge. The task is you to reimagine a key the fundamental concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Construct a machine that turns rotary motion into vertical action. You have these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing into which one of the bars will fit snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so that the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (less celebrated) candidates for the world’s most impactful creation.
