Are You Able to Crack It? That Overlooked Dutch Invention Which Forged our Contemporary World
There are many candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
As per a new book, though, that honor belongs to a automated sawmill invented through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before automated cutting, constructing a modest merchant vessel required approximately ten lumberjacks laboring over 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be produced within a week.”
Thanks to this rapid automated cutter, that converted timber to planks with almost no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct ships more quickly than any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, economic as well as artistic supremacy across the continent and the globe.
The First True Industrial Machine
The inventor's sawmill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s first authentic industrial machine.” A windmill turned a gear. One component converted its circular movement into vertical motion to power the cutting blade. Another component changed that same rotary movement into a lateral motion feeding the log to the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the wood ahead a measured step per stroke.
“Each element was simple on its own. The Dutchman’s genius was to combine these parts in order that they acted in a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every descending motion while moving with each return motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental parts.”
A fact that leads us to the current challenge. The task is for you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts behind this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine which converts circular movement into vertical motion. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or housing into which one of the rods will fit snugly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a base, so that the parts don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK with the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please propose (less celebrated) candidates as the world’s greatest creation.
