Are You Able to Solve It? That Forgotten Dutch Invention Which Shaped our Contemporary Globe
One can find many candidates to claim the designation as “world’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, however, that title should go to a automated timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to automated cutting, constructing a modest trading ship necessitated approximately 10 sawyers working for 90 days,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, an identical quantity of cut lumber could be produced within seven days.”
Owing to this speedy automated cutter, that converted logs into planks with virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build vessels more quickly than any other nation, which unleashed a century of Netherlands maritime, economic as well as artistic supremacy across Europe and the world.
The First Genuine Industrial Machine
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues the writer, represented “mankind’s initial true industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a gear. One component transformed the rotary motion into vertical action to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s motion feeding the timber toward the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the log forward a measured step per stroke.
“Every component seemed modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine these parts in order that they operated within a perfectly controlled order, sawing on every descending stroke and moving on every return motion. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent use of fundamental components.”
A fact that brings us to the current puzzle. The task is for you to reinvent a key the fundamental concepts behind this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a mechanism which converts rotary motion into vertical motion. You have these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or housing through which a single the rods will fit perfectly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a stand, so the parts do not collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK time featuring the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to propose (non obvious) contenders for the world’s greatest invention.
