Can You Crack This? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Forged the Modern World
One can find many candidates for the title of “world’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, however, that title should go to a mechanised sawmill invented through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, building a modest merchant vessel required approximately ten lumberjacks laboring over three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be produced within a week.”
Thanks to their speedy mechanical saw, that converted logs into boards with virtually no human effort, the Dutch could build ships more quickly than anyone else, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, financial and cultural supremacy in the continent and the world.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, contends Dávila, represented “mankind’s first authentic factory apparatus.” A windmill turned a gear. A single part converted the rotary motion to up-and-down motion for the saw. Another component transformed the spinning movement into a lateral motion advancing the log toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the wood ahead a measured step each stroke.
“Every component was modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius was to integrate these parts so they acted within a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each descending motion and moving on every upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent use of fundamental parts.”
A fact that leads us to the current puzzle. The task is you to reimagine one of the basic ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a mechanism that turns circular motion to up-and-down action. You have these items only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or sleeve into which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a stand, so that the components don’t collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK time featuring the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please suggest (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s greatest creation.
