Can You Crack It? That Overlooked Netherlands Invention That Shaped our Modern Globe
There are many candidates to claim the title of “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a new book, however, that title belongs to a mechanised timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before automated cutting, constructing a simple merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten lumberjacks working over 90 days,” notes the author. “With wind-powered sawmills, the same amount of cut lumber might be produced within a week.”
Thanks to their speedy mechanical cutter, that turned logs to boards using almost no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to construct vessels more quickly than any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, economic as well as artistic supremacy in Europe and the globe.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends Dávila, represented “mankind’s initial authentic factory apparatus.” A windmill rotated a gear. One component transformed its rotary movement into vertical action for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed the spinning motion into a lateral motion feeding the log to the blade. A ratchet system shifted the log forward one precise increment each cycle.
“Every component was simple on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to combine them in order that they acted in a perfectly controlled order, sawing with each descending stroke while advancing on every upward stroke. This constituted a remarkably clever use of fundamental components.”
A fact that leads us up to today’s challenge. I’d like for you to reinvent one of the fundamental ideas behind this historic invention.
Round and Up
Design a machine that turns rotary movement to up-and-down action. Your available these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or sleeve into which one of the bars can slide perfectly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a base, so the components don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK featuring the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (less celebrated) candidates for the world’s greatest creation.
