Are You Able to Solve This? That Forgotten Netherlands Creation Which Shaped our Modern World
One can find numerous contenders for the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, though, that title belongs to the automated timber mill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before mechanised cutting, constructing a modest trading ship required approximately 10 lumberjacks working for three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical quantity of processed timber might be manufactured in less than a week.”
Owing to their rapid automated cutter, which converted timber into boards with almost no human effort, the Dutch could build vessels more quickly than anyone else, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands naval, financial and artistic dominance across Europe and the globe.
The Original True Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s first authentic factory apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a gear. One component converted its circular movement to up-and-down action to power the cutting blade. Another component transformed that same spinning motion into a lateral movement feeding the log to the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the wood ahead a measured step each stroke.
“Every component seemed simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to integrate them in order that the machine operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting on every downward stroke and moving on every upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly clever use of fundamental components.”
Which brings us up to today’s puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent a key the fundamental ideas behind this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine which converts circular movement to vertical action. Your available these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or housing into which one of the rods will fit perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so the components do not fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK featuring the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the planet’s greatest invention.
