Are You Able to Solve It? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Forged our Modern Globe
One can find many contenders to claim the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that honor should go to the mechanised timber mill invented through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before automated cutting, constructing a simple trading ship necessitated approximately ten sawyers laboring over three months,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, the same amount of processed timber might be manufactured within seven days.”
Owing to this rapid automated cutter, that turned logs into boards with almost no human effort, the Dutch could construct vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, which sparked one hundred years of Dutch naval, economic as well as artistic supremacy in the continent and the globe.
The Original Genuine Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues the writer, represented “mankind’s initial authentic industrial apparatus.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part converted its circular movement into vertical action for the saw. Another component transformed that same spinning motion into a sideway’s motion feeding the timber to the blade. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead one precise increment each cycle.
“Each element seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to combine these parts so the machine operated in a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each downward stroke and moving on every return motion. It was a remarkably clever application of fundamental components.”
Which leads us to today’s challenge. The task is you to reimagine one of the basic ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine that turns circular motion into up-and-down action. Your available these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing through which one of the bars can slide snugly. (Assume you can put things on a stand, so that the components do not fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK time with the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please suggest (non obvious) candidates as the world’s greatest creation.
