Can You Crack It? The Overlooked Dutch Creation Which Forged the Modern Globe
One can find numerous contenders for the title of “world’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, however, that title should go to a automated sawmill conceived through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Prior to automated cutting, building a simple merchant vessel required around ten sawyers working for 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven lumber mills, the same amount of cut lumber might be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Thanks to this speedy mechanical cutter, that converted logs to boards using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch were able to build vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, which sparked one hundred years of Dutch maritime, financial and artistic dominance in Europe and the globe.
The First True Industrial Device
The inventor's lumber mill, contends Dávila, represented “mankind’s initial true factory apparatus.” A windmill turned a gear. One component transformed the rotary movement into up-and-down motion for the cutting blade. Another component transformed the spinning movement into a sideway’s movement feeding the timber to the blade. A geared mechanism moved the log forward one precise increment each stroke.
“Every component seemed modest by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine these parts in order that they operated in a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every descending stroke and advancing with each return stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent use of fundamental components.”
Which brings us to today’s puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts underpinning this historic invention.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism that turns circular movement to up-and-down motion. You have these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or sleeve through which one of the bars can slide perfectly. (Assume you can put things on a base, so that the parts don’t fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK featuring the answer.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s greatest creation.
