Are You Able to Crack This? The Overlooked Dutch Invention That Shaped the Contemporary World
There are numerous contenders to claim the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
As per a new book, though, that honor should go to the automated timber mill conceived through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, building a modest merchant vessel necessitated around ten sawyers laboring for 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be produced in less than seven days.”
Owing to their speedy automated saw, that converted logs into planks using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could construct vessels more quickly than anyone else, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, financial as well as cultural dominance across Europe and the world.
The First True Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends Dávila, was “mankind’s initial authentic factory apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component converted the rotary movement into up-and-down action for the cutting blade. Another component transformed the spinning movement into a lateral movement advancing the timber toward the cutter. A ratchet system moved the wood forward one precise increment per cycle.
“Each element was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius was to combine them so the machine operated in a precisely synchronized order, cutting on every downward motion and advancing on every return motion. It was a remarkably clever use of fundamental parts.”
A fact that leads us to today’s challenge. The task is you to reinvent a key the fundamental ideas behind this historic machine.
Round and Up
Construct a machine that turns circular motion into vertical motion. Your available these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a tube or sleeve into which a single the rods will fit snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so that the parts do not collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK time featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s most impactful invention.
