Can You Crack This? The Forgotten Netherlands Creation Which Shaped the Contemporary Globe
There are many candidates for the title of “planet’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
As per a new book, however, that honor should go to a mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised cutting, building a modest trading ship required around 10 sawyers laboring over three months,” writes the author. “With wind-powered sawmills, the same amount of cut lumber might be produced within a week.”
Thanks to their speedy mechanical saw, that converted timber to planks with almost no human effort, Dutch builders were able to build vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Dutch maritime, economic and artistic supremacy across the continent and the world.
The First True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s first true factory apparatus.” A windmill turned a gear. A single part transformed its circular movement to vertical action for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the spinning movement into a lateral movement advancing the timber toward the blade. A ratchet system moved the log forward a measured step each stroke.
“Each element was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine them in order that they operated within a perfectly controlled order, sawing with each downward stroke and moving on every return stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental components.”
A fact that leads us up to the current puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent one of the basic ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine that turns rotary movement into vertical action. Your available these components only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or sleeve into which a single the bars will fit snugly. (Consider that it is possible to mount components on a stand, so that the components do not fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to propose (non obvious) candidates as the world’s greatest invention.