Are You Able to Crack This? The Overlooked Dutch Creation Which Shaped our Contemporary World
There are many candidates to claim the designation as “world’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, however, that honor should go to a mechanised sawmill invented by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, constructing a simple merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten sawyers laboring for 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber could be produced in less than seven days.”
Owing to this speedy mechanical saw, which converted timber to planks using almost no manual labor, the Dutch could build vessels more quickly than anyone else, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch naval, economic as well as cultural supremacy across the continent and the globe.
The Original True Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends Dávila, represented “mankind’s first authentic factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component transformed its rotary motion to up-and-down motion to power the saw. Another component changed the rotary motion into a sideway’s movement advancing the log to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the log forward a measured step per stroke.
“Each element seemed modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius was to combine these parts in order that the machine operated within a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting with each downward stroke while moving on every upward stroke. It was an astonishingly intelligent application of basic components.”
Which brings us up to the current puzzle. I’d like for you to reinvent one of the basic concepts behind Corneliszoon’s machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a mechanism which converts circular motion to up-and-down motion. Your available these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or housing through which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Assume you can mount components on a stand, so the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) candidates for the world’s most impactful invention.
