Are You Able to Solve It? That Overlooked Dutch Invention That Forged the Modern Globe
One can find many candidates to claim the designation as “world’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a new book, though, that honor belongs to the automated timber mill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel necessitated around ten lumberjacks laboring for 90 days,” notes the author. “With wind-driven lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber might be produced within seven days.”
Thanks to this rapid mechanical cutter, that turned timber into planks with almost no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build ships faster compared to anyone else, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, economic and cultural dominance in Europe and the world.
The Original Genuine Industrial Machine
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends Dávila, represented “humanity’s initial true factory machine.” A windmill turned a wheel. One component transformed its circular movement to vertical motion for the cutting blade. Another component changed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s motion feeding the log toward the blade. A geared mechanism moved the wood ahead a measured step per stroke.
“Each element was simple on its own. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to integrate them in order that they acted in a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting on every downward stroke and advancing on every upward stroke. It was an astonishingly clever application of fundamental parts.”
A fact that leads us to today’s puzzle. I’d like for you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts behind Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Design a machine which converts circular movement to vertical action. You have these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing into which a single the bars will fit perfectly. (Assume you can mount components on a stand, so that the parts don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) candidates as the world’s greatest invention.
