Can You Crack It? That Forgotten Dutch Creation Which Forged the Contemporary World
There are many contenders to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
As per a new book, though, that honor should go to a automated sawmill invented by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, constructing a simple trading ship required approximately 10 sawyers laboring over 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be manufactured within a week.”
Thanks to their speedy mechanical cutter, which converted timber into planks using almost no human effort, Dutch builders were able to construct vessels more quickly than anyone else, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, economic and artistic dominance across Europe and the world.
The Original True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's sawmill, argues Dávila, was “humanity’s initial true factory apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a gear. One component transformed the rotary motion into up-and-down action to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the timber toward the blade. A ratchet system moved the log forward one precise increment per cycle.
“Every component seemed simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine them so they operated in a precisely synchronized order, cutting on every downward stroke and advancing on every return motion. This constituted an astonishingly clever application of basic parts.”
A fact that brings us up to the current challenge. The task is you to reinvent a key the fundamental ideas behind Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism which converts rotary motion to up-and-down motion. Your available these items only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or housing into which a single the bars will fit snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a stand, so the parts don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK with the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (less celebrated) candidates as the planet’s greatest invention.
