Are You Able to Crack It? That Forgotten Netherlands Creation That Shaped our Modern Globe
There are many contenders for the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, however, that honor should go to a mechanised timber mill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, building a simple trading ship required approximately ten lumberjacks working over 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of cut lumber could be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Owing to their rapid automated saw, which converted timber into boards with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could build ships faster compared to anyone else, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, financial as well as cultural supremacy across the continent and the world.
The Original Genuine Industrial Device
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, represented “humanity’s first authentic factory machine.” A wind turbine turned a gear. A single part transformed its rotary motion into vertical motion for the cutting blade. Another component transformed the spinning movement into a lateral motion feeding the timber toward the blade. A ratchet system moved the log ahead a measured step each cycle.
“Every component was modest by itself. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to combine these parts in order that they acted within a perfectly controlled order, cutting with each downward motion while moving with each return stroke. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of basic parts.”
A fact that brings us to the current challenge. I’d like for you to reinvent one of the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a mechanism which converts rotary motion into vertical motion. You have these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing through which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so that the components do not collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK time with the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s most impactful invention.