Are You Able to Solve It? The Forgotten Netherlands Invention Which Shaped our Modern Globe
There are numerous contenders for the title of “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
As per a new book, though, that honor belongs to the mechanised sawmill invented by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Prior to automated cutting, building a modest merchant vessel necessitated approximately 10 sawyers laboring for three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven sawmills, the same amount of cut lumber could be produced within a week.”
Owing to their speedy automated cutter, which turned logs into boards with almost no manual labor, the Dutch could construct vessels faster than any other nation, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands naval, financial as well as artistic supremacy in the continent and the world.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Device
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends the writer, represented “humanity’s initial authentic factory apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component transformed its circular motion to up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. Another component transformed that same rotary movement into a sideway’s movement advancing the log to the blade. A ratchet system moved the log ahead a measured step per cycle.
“Every component seemed simple on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to integrate these parts in order that the machine operated within a perfectly controlled order, sawing with each downward motion while moving with each upward stroke. It was a remarkably intelligent application of fundamental components.”
Which leads us to today’s challenge. I’d like for you to reimagine a key the basic ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Design a machine that turns rotary motion into vertical action. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a tube or housing through which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can mount components on a base, so the parts don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders as the planet’s greatest creation.
