Are You Able to Crack It? That Overlooked Dutch Invention Which Shaped the Modern Globe
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, though, that honor should go to the mechanised timber mill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated cutting, building a modest trading ship required approximately 10 sawyers laboring for 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same quantity of processed timber could be manufactured within seven days.”
Owing to their rapid mechanical saw, that turned logs to planks with almost no manual labor, Dutch builders could build ships more quickly compared to anyone else, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, economic and cultural supremacy in the continent and the world.
The First True Industrial Device
The inventor's sawmill, argues the writer, represented “mankind’s initial true factory machine.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. A single part converted the circular motion to up-and-down motion to power the saw. Another component changed the rotary motion into a sideway’s motion advancing the log toward the cutter. A ratchet system moved the wood ahead a measured step each stroke.
“Each element seemed modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to combine these parts in order that the machine acted within a perfectly controlled order, sawing with each descending stroke while moving with each upward stroke. It was a remarkably intelligent use of basic components.”
Which leads us to today’s challenge. I’d like you to reinvent a key the fundamental concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a mechanism which converts circular movement into up-and-down action. Your available these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or housing into which a single the rods will fit perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so that the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK time with the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please propose (less celebrated) contenders as the planet’s most impactful invention.
