Are You Able to Solve It? That Forgotten Dutch Creation That Shaped the Contemporary World
There are numerous contenders for the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, though, that honor should go to the mechanised timber mill conceived by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, building a modest merchant vessel required approximately 10 lumberjacks laboring over 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be produced within seven days.”
Owing to their speedy mechanical saw, which converted timber into boards with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could build ships faster than any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch naval, financial and artistic supremacy in the continent and the world.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Device
The inventor's sawmill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s first true industrial machine.” A windmill turned a gear. A single part transformed the circular movement to up-and-down action to power the saw. Another component transformed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s motion advancing the timber to the blade. A ratchet system moved the log ahead a measured step each cycle.
“Every component was simple by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to integrate these parts in order that the machine acted within a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every downward stroke and advancing on every return stroke. It was a remarkably clever use of basic components.”
Which leads us to the current puzzle. I’d like you to reimagine a key the fundamental concepts behind this historic machine.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism which converts rotary motion into up-and-down motion. Your available these components only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or sleeve through which one of the rods will fit snugly. (Assume you can mount components on a base, so that the components do not fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (non obvious) candidates as the planet’s greatest creation.
