Can You Crack It? The Overlooked Dutch Creation Which Forged our Modern World
One can find many contenders for the designation as “planet’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a new book, though, that honor should go to the automated timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before mechanised cutting, building a simple merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten sawyers working over 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of processed timber might be produced within seven days.”
Thanks to this rapid automated cutter, that turned logs to planks using almost no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to construct vessels faster compared to anyone else, which unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, economic and artistic supremacy across the continent and the world.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends the writer, represented “humanity’s initial authentic factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component converted its rotary movement into up-and-down motion for the cutting blade. Another component changed the rotary motion into a sideway’s movement advancing the timber to the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the wood forward one precise increment per stroke.
“Every component was simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to combine these parts in order that they acted within a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing with each downward motion while moving with each return stroke. It was an astonishingly clever use of fundamental components.”
Which brings us up to the current challenge. The task is you to reimagine a key the basic ideas behind this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine which converts circular motion into vertical action. You have these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or sleeve into which one of the rods can slide perfectly. (Assume you can put things on a stand, so the components don’t collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK with the answer.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please suggest (non obvious) candidates as the world’s greatest creation.
