Can You Solve It? The Forgotten Dutch Creation Which Shaped the Modern World

There are many candidates to claim the designation as “world’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.

As per a recent publication, however, that honor should go to a mechanised sawmill conceived through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.

“Before mechanised sawing, constructing a modest trading ship necessitated approximately 10 sawyers laboring for 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, an identical quantity of cut lumber might be produced within a week.”

Owing to this rapid mechanical cutter, which converted timber to boards using virtually no human effort, Dutch builders were able to construct ships faster than any other nation, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, financial and cultural supremacy across the continent and the world.

The Original Genuine Industrial Machine

The inventor's sawmill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s first true factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. One component transformed its circular movement into vertical action to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed the spinning motion into a sideway’s motion feeding the timber to the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead one precise increment per cycle.

“Each element seemed modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate them in order that the machine operated within a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each descending stroke while advancing with each upward stroke. It was a remarkably intelligent application of fundamental parts.”

A fact that leads us up to today’s puzzle. The task is you to reinvent one of the basic ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.

Round and Up

Construct a machine which converts rotary motion to vertical action. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing into which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a stand, so that the parts do not collapse.)

I’ll be back later today UK with the answer.

In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s most impactful creation.