Are You Able to Solve It? The Forgotten Netherlands Creation That Forged our Contemporary Globe

There are many contenders to claim the title of “planet’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.

According to a new book, however, that title belongs to a automated sawmill conceived through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.

“Before mechanised cutting, building a modest merchant vessel necessitated around ten sawyers laboring for three months,” notes the author. “With wind-driven lumber mills, an identical quantity of cut lumber might be manufactured within seven days.”

Thanks to this rapid automated cutter, which converted timber into planks using virtually no human effort, Dutch builders were able to construct ships faster than any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands naval, economic and artistic dominance across the continent and the world.

The Original Genuine Manufacturing Machine

Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends Dávila, was “mankind’s first true industrial machine.” A windmill rotated a wheel. A single part transformed its rotary motion into up-and-down motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed that same spinning motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the log to the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the wood forward one precise increment per stroke.

“Every component was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to integrate these parts in order that they operated in a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing on every downward stroke while advancing with each upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of basic components.”

A fact that brings us up to today’s puzzle. I’d like for you to reimagine a key the basic concepts behind Corneliszoon’s machine.

Round and Up

Construct a mechanism which converts circular motion into up-and-down action. Your available these components only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or housing through which a single the rods can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so the components don’t fall down.)

The solution returns later today UK time featuring the answer.

In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) candidates as the world’s greatest creation.