Are You Able to Crack This? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Forged our Contemporary World
There are many candidates for the title of “world’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a new book, however, that title belongs to the automated timber mill invented through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to automated cutting, building a modest merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten lumberjacks working over 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber might be manufactured within seven days.”
Owing to this rapid automated cutter, which converted timber into boards with virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build ships faster compared to any other nation, an advantage that sparked a century of Netherlands maritime, financial as well as cultural supremacy in Europe and the globe.
The Original Genuine Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s first true industrial machine.” A windmill turned a wheel. One component transformed its rotary motion to up-and-down motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed that same rotary movement into a lateral movement feeding the log to the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the wood ahead a measured step each cycle.
“Each element was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to integrate them in order that they operated within a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing on every downward motion while advancing with each return stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent use of basic components.”
Which brings us to today’s challenge. The task is you to reinvent a key the fundamental ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine which converts circular movement to up-and-down action. Your available these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing through which one of the bars can slide snugly. (Consider that you can mount components on a stand, so the components do not fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK time featuring the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (less celebrated) candidates as the planet’s greatest creation.
