Can You Crack It? That Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Shaped the Contemporary World
There are many candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a new book, though, that honor belongs to the automated sawmill invented by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before automated cutting, constructing a simple trading ship required around ten sawyers working over 90 days,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered sawmills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be manufactured within a week.”
Thanks to this speedy mechanical saw, that converted logs to planks using almost no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build vessels more quickly than any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, economic and artistic dominance across Europe and the world.
The Original True Industrial Machine
The inventor's sawmill, contends Dávila, was “mankind’s initial true industrial machine.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. One component transformed its circular movement to vertical action to power the cutting blade. Another component transformed the spinning motion into a sideway’s motion feeding the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism moved the log ahead a measured step each stroke.
“Every component was modest by itself. The Dutchman’s genius was to combine them so the machine operated in a perfectly controlled order, sawing on every downward stroke while moving with each upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly clever application of fundamental components.”
A fact that brings us to the current challenge. I’d like you to reinvent one of the basic ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism which converts rotary movement to up-and-down motion. You have these items only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing into which one of the rods will fit snugly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a base, so that the parts don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time featuring the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s most impactful invention.
