Are You Able to Crack This? That Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Forged the Contemporary World
There are many contenders to claim the title of “world’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.
As per a new book, however, that title should go to the automated timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to automated cutting, constructing a simple merchant vessel required approximately ten sawyers laboring over 90 days,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of cut lumber could be manufactured in less than a week.”
Thanks to their speedy mechanical cutter, which converted timber into boards with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could build ships more quickly than any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch naval, financial as well as cultural supremacy across Europe and the globe.
The First Genuine Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s initial authentic factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. A single part converted its circular motion to vertical motion for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the rotary motion into a sideway’s motion feeding the timber toward the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the wood forward one precise increment each stroke.
“Each element seemed modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to integrate them so they operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every descending motion while moving on every upward stroke. This constituted a remarkably clever use of fundamental parts.”
A fact that leads us up to today’s challenge. I’d like for you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts behind Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Construct a machine that turns rotary movement to up-and-down motion. You have these items only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or sleeve into which one of the rods will fit snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a stand, so that the parts don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time featuring the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) candidates as the planet’s greatest creation.
