Are You Able to Solve This? That Forgotten Dutch Invention Which Shaped our Contemporary Globe
There are many candidates for the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, however, that honor should go to a automated timber mill conceived by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before automated cutting, building a modest trading ship necessitated around 10 lumberjacks working for three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, an identical amount of processed timber could be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Owing to this speedy automated saw, that converted logs into planks with almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to build ships more quickly than anyone else, an advantage that sparked a century of Netherlands maritime, economic as well as artistic supremacy in the continent and the world.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Device
The inventor's sawmill, argues Dávila, was “humanity’s first true factory machine.” A wind turbine turned a gear. One component converted its rotary movement to up-and-down action to power the saw. Another component transformed the spinning motion into a sideway’s motion advancing the log toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log ahead a measured step each stroke.
“Each element seemed modest by itself. The Dutchman’s genius was to integrate these parts so the machine operated within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting on every descending stroke and moving with each return stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent use of fundamental parts.”
Which brings us to today’s challenge. I’d like you to reinvent a key the fundamental concepts behind Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a mechanism which converts circular motion to vertical motion. You have these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing into which one of the rods can slide perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so that the parts don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK time featuring the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (non obvious) candidates for the planet’s greatest invention.
