Can You Solve This? That Overlooked Dutch Creation That Shaped our Contemporary Globe
One can find numerous candidates for the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that title belongs to the mechanised sawmill invented through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before automated cutting, building a modest trading ship necessitated approximately ten sawyers working for three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, an identical amount of cut lumber could be produced in less than seven days.”
Thanks to this rapid automated saw, which turned timber into planks with virtually no human effort, the Dutch could build vessels faster than anyone else, an advantage that sparked a century of Netherlands naval, economic and cultural dominance in Europe and the world.
The First Genuine Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s initial authentic industrial apparatus.” A windmill turned a wheel. A single part converted its rotary movement to up-and-down action for the cutting blade. Another component changed the spinning movement into a lateral motion feeding the log to the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the wood forward one precise increment each stroke.
“Every component was modest on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to integrate them so they acted in a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting on every downward motion while moving with each return stroke. This constituted a remarkably intelligent application of fundamental components.”
Which brings us up to the current puzzle. The task is for you to reimagine one of the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Round and Up
Construct a machine which converts circular motion to up-and-down action. Your available these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or sleeve through which one of the bars can slide snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so that the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the solution.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to suggest (non obvious) candidates for the world’s greatest creation.
