Can You Solve It? The Forgotten 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 movable type. The steam engine.
As per a new book, however, that title should go to the automated timber mill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated cutting, building a modest trading ship required approximately ten lumberjacks working over three months,” notes the author. “With wind-powered sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber might be produced in less than a week.”
Thanks to this speedy mechanical cutter, that turned timber into boards using virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build vessels faster than any other nation, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, financial and artistic supremacy across the continent and the world.
The First Genuine Industrial Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s first authentic factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. A single part converted its circular movement into up-and-down action for the cutting blade. Another component transformed that same spinning motion into a sideway’s movement advancing the timber to the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the log forward one precise increment per stroke.
“Every component seemed modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to integrate these parts in order that they operated in a perfectly controlled order, cutting with each downward motion while moving on every upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly clever application of fundamental components.”
Which brings us to the current puzzle. I’d like for you to reimagine a key the basic ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Design a mechanism which converts circular motion into vertical motion. Your available these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a tube or housing into which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a stand, so that the components don’t collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK time with the answer.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to propose (less celebrated) candidates for the world’s greatest invention.
