Are You Able to Crack This? That Forgotten Dutch Invention That Forged the Modern Globe
There are numerous candidates to claim the designation as “world’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, though, that title should go to a automated timber mill conceived through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, building a modest merchant vessel required around ten lumberjacks working for 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same amount of cut lumber could be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Owing to their speedy mechanical cutter, which converted logs to planks using almost no human effort, the Dutch could construct ships more quickly than anyone else, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, economic as well as cultural supremacy across the continent and the world.
The Original True Manufacturing Device
The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, was “humanity’s initial true factory machine.” A windmill rotated a wheel. One component transformed the rotary motion to up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. Another component transformed the spinning movement into a sideway’s movement advancing the log toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log ahead a measured step each cycle.
“Each element was modest by itself. The Dutchman’s genius was to combine these parts so they operated in a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting with each downward motion and moving with each upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent use of fundamental parts.”
Which brings us to the current challenge. The task is for you to reinvent one of the basic ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism which converts rotary motion into vertical action. Your available these components only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a tube or sleeve into which one of the rods will fit perfectly. (Consider that you can mount components on a stand, so the parts do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the planet’s most impactful creation.
