Are You Able to Solve It? The Forgotten Dutch Invention Which Shaped our Modern Globe
There are many candidates for the designation as “planet’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a new book, though, that title belongs to the automated timber mill invented through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten sawyers working over three months,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same amount of processed timber could be produced in less than a week.”
Owing to their speedy automated cutter, which turned timber to planks using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could build vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, which unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, economic and cultural dominance in the continent and the globe.
The Original Genuine Industrial Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, contends Dávila, represented “humanity’s initial true industrial machine.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. A single part transformed its circular motion to vertical action to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed that same rotary movement into a sideway’s movement advancing the log toward the cutter. A ratchet system moved the log forward one precise increment per stroke.
“Each element seemed simple on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine these parts in order that the machine operated within a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every downward motion and advancing on every return stroke. This constituted a remarkably intelligent application of basic components.”
Which brings us up to today’s challenge. The task is you to reimagine a key the basic ideas behind this historic invention.
Round and Up
Design a machine which converts circular motion into up-and-down motion. You have these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or housing through which a single the rods can slide perfectly. (Assume you can mount components on a stand, so that the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK featuring the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders as the planet’s greatest invention.
