Can You Solve This? The Overlooked Dutch Invention Which Forged the Modern Globe
One can find numerous candidates for the title of “world’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a new book, though, that title should go to a mechanised sawmill conceived through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, building a simple merchant vessel required around ten sawyers working for three months,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber could be produced within seven days.”
Owing to their rapid automated cutter, which turned logs into planks using virtually no human effort, the Dutch could build vessels more quickly than any other nation, which sparked a century of Dutch naval, financial as well as cultural dominance in Europe and the world.
The Original True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, contends Dávila, was “humanity’s initial authentic industrial machine.” A windmill rotated a wheel. One component converted the rotary movement to vertical action to power the saw. Another component changed that same rotary movement into a lateral motion advancing the log to the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log forward a measured step each cycle.
“Every component seemed modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to combine these parts in order that the machine operated in a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing with each descending motion and moving on every return stroke. This constituted a remarkably intelligent use of fundamental parts.”
Which leads us up to the current puzzle. I’d like for you to reimagine a key the fundamental concepts underpinning this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine which converts rotary motion into vertical motion. Your available these items only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or housing through which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Assume you can put things on a stand, so that the parts don’t fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK with the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders as the planet’s greatest invention.
