Are You Able to Crack It? The Overlooked Dutch Creation That Shaped our Contemporary World
One can find numerous contenders for the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a new book, however, that honor belongs to the mechanised sawmill invented by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before mechanised cutting, building a simple merchant vessel required approximately ten lumberjacks laboring over 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber might be produced in less than a week.”
Owing to this rapid mechanical cutter, which converted logs into planks using virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders could build ships more quickly than any other nation, which sparked one hundred years of Dutch maritime, financial and artistic dominance in Europe and the globe.
The Original True Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s initial true industrial apparatus.” A windmill turned a wheel. One component converted the circular motion into vertical motion for the saw. Another component transformed the spinning movement into a lateral movement feeding the timber toward the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the log ahead one precise increment per cycle.
“Every component was simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate these parts so they operated in a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every downward stroke and moving on every return stroke. It was a remarkably clever application of fundamental parts.”
A fact that brings us up to the current challenge. I’d like for you to reimagine one of the fundamental ideas behind Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a mechanism which converts circular movement to up-and-down action. You have these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing through which a single the bars can slide snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so the components do not fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK with the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders as the planet’s greatest invention.
