Are You Able to Solve It? The Overlooked Dutch Invention Which Shaped the Modern World
There are many contenders for the title of “planet’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that honor should go to the automated timber mill invented by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before automated sawing, building a simple trading ship necessitated around 10 lumberjacks laboring over three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same amount of processed timber could be manufactured within seven days.”
Thanks to this speedy automated cutter, that converted logs into planks using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could construct vessels faster compared to any other nation, which unleashed a century of Netherlands maritime, economic and artistic dominance in Europe and the globe.
The Original Genuine Industrial Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, was “humanity’s first true factory machine.” A windmill rotated a gear. One component transformed its circular motion into up-and-down motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed the spinning motion into a lateral movement feeding the timber to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the wood ahead a measured step each stroke.
“Every component seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine them so the machine operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting on every descending motion and advancing on every upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly clever application of fundamental parts.”
Which brings us to today’s puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent a key the fundamental concepts underpinning this historic machine.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism which converts circular motion to up-and-down action. Your available these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or sleeve into which one of the rods will fit perfectly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a base, so that the parts don’t collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK time featuring the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s greatest invention.
