Can You Solve This? The Overlooked Netherlands Invention Which Forged our Modern Globe

There are many candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.

According to a new book, though, that honor belongs to a automated timber mill invented through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.

“Before automated cutting, constructing a modest merchant vessel required around 10 sawyers working over three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same amount of processed timber could be manufactured in less than seven days.”

Owing to their rapid mechanical saw, that converted timber into planks with virtually no human effort, Dutch builders could construct vessels faster compared to anyone else, which unleashed a century of Netherlands maritime, financial and cultural supremacy across the continent and the world.

The First True Industrial Machine

Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s initial authentic factory machine.” A wind turbine turned a gear. One component transformed its rotary movement to vertical action to power the saw. A separate mechanism changed the spinning motion into a sideway’s motion advancing the log to the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the wood ahead a measured step per stroke.

“Each element was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to integrate these parts in order that the machine operated within a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each downward stroke and advancing on every return stroke. This constituted a remarkably clever use of basic components.”

A fact that brings us to the current challenge. I’d like you to reinvent one of the basic ideas behind this historic machine.

Circular to Vertical

Construct a mechanism that turns rotary movement to up-and-down motion. You have these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or housing through which one of the bars will fit snugly. (Assume you can mount components on a base, so that the components don’t fall down.)

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

In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s greatest invention.