Can You Crack It? That Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Forged our Contemporary World
One can find many contenders to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.
As per a recent publication, though, that honor should go to the mechanised timber mill conceived through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, constructing a simple merchant vessel required around 10 lumberjacks working for 90 days,” writes the author. “With wind-driven sawmills, the same amount of cut lumber might be produced within seven days.”
Owing to this rapid automated saw, that turned logs into planks with virtually no human effort, Dutch builders were able to build vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch naval, economic as well as artistic supremacy across the continent and the globe.
The First True Industrial Machine
The inventor's sawmill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s first authentic industrial apparatus.” A windmill turned a gear. A single part converted its circular movement into vertical motion to power the saw. Another component transformed the rotary motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the log toward the blade. A ratchet system moved the wood ahead a measured step each cycle.
“Every component was modest by itself. The Dutchman’s genius was to combine these parts in order that the machine acted in a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each descending motion while moving on every return motion. It was a remarkably intelligent application of fundamental parts.”
A fact that brings us up to the current challenge. I’d like you to reinvent a key the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine which converts circular motion to up-and-down motion. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a tube or housing through which a single the bars will fit snugly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a base, so the components don’t fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK time with the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s greatest invention.