Are You Able to Solve This? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Forged our Contemporary Globe
There are many candidates for the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
As per a new book, though, that honor belongs to the mechanised timber mill invented through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, constructing a simple trading ship required approximately ten sawyers working for three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber could be manufactured in less than a week.”
Owing to this speedy mechanical saw, which turned timber to boards using almost no manual labor, the Dutch could build vessels faster compared to any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch naval, economic as well as artistic supremacy across Europe and the globe.
The Original True Manufacturing Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s first true industrial machine.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. A single part transformed its circular motion to vertical action for the cutting blade. Another component transformed the rotary motion into a lateral motion feeding the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism moved the wood forward one precise increment each cycle.
“Each element was simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius was to combine these parts in order that the machine acted within a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each downward stroke and moving with each upward motion. It was an astonishingly clever application of basic parts.”
Which leads us to the current challenge. I’d like you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism that turns rotary movement to vertical motion. Your available these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or housing through which a single the rods will fit snugly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a stand, so that the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK time with the answer.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please propose (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s most impactful invention.
