Can You Crack This? That Overlooked Dutch Invention That Forged the Contemporary Globe

There are numerous contenders to claim the title of “planet’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.

As per a recent publication, though, that title belongs to a mechanised sawmill invented by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.

“Before mechanised cutting, building a modest trading ship required around ten lumberjacks working over three months,” writes the author. “With wind-driven sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber might be manufactured in less than a week.”

Thanks to their rapid mechanical cutter, which turned logs to boards using almost no manual labor, Dutch builders could build ships faster compared to any other nation, which sparked a century of Netherlands naval, economic and cultural supremacy across the continent and the globe.

The Original Genuine Manufacturing Machine

Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends Dávila, was “mankind’s initial true factory apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component transformed its circular motion to up-and-down motion to power the saw. Another component changed the rotary movement into a sideway’s movement feeding the log to the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the log forward a measured step per cycle.

“Each element was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine these parts so the machine acted within a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each descending motion while advancing on every upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent use of fundamental parts.”

A fact that brings us to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts underpinning this historic invention.

Round and Up

Construct a machine which converts circular movement into vertical motion. You have these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing into which one of the bars can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to mount components on a stand, so the components don’t collapse.)

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

Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to propose (less celebrated) candidates for the planet’s most impactful creation.