Can You Crack This? The Forgotten Dutch Creation Which Forged the Contemporary World
One can find numerous contenders to claim the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, however, that title should go to a mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, constructing a simple merchant vessel required around ten lumberjacks working over three months,” notes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same quantity of processed timber might be manufactured in less than a week.”
Owing to their speedy mechanical cutter, which converted timber to boards with virtually no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct vessels more quickly than anyone else, which sparked a century of Dutch naval, financial as well as cultural dominance in the continent and the globe.
The Original Genuine Industrial Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s first authentic industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. One component converted its circular movement into up-and-down action for the saw. Another component transformed that same spinning movement into a lateral motion advancing the timber toward the blade. A ratchet system shifted the log ahead a measured step per stroke.
“Each element seemed simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate them in order that the machine acted in a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing on every descending stroke while moving on every return stroke. It was an astonishingly intelligent application of basic parts.”
A fact that leads us to the current puzzle. The task is for you to reimagine one of the basic ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism that turns circular motion into vertical motion. You have these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing through which one of the bars will fit snugly. (Assume you can mount components on a base, so the parts don’t collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK with the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (non obvious) candidates for the planet’s greatest invention.
