Can You Crack It? The Forgotten Dutch Invention Which Forged our Contemporary Globe

There are many candidates for the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.

As per a new book, however, that title belongs to a automated sawmill invented by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.

“Before mechanised cutting, building a simple trading ship necessitated approximately ten lumberjacks working over three months,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber could be manufactured in less than a week.”

Owing to their speedy automated saw, which turned timber to boards with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could construct ships faster compared to anyone else, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch naval, economic as well as artistic supremacy across the continent and the world.

The Original True Industrial Machine

Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s first authentic industrial machine.” A windmill turned a wheel. One component transformed its circular movement into vertical motion for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same spinning motion into a lateral motion advancing the timber to the blade. A ratchet system shifted the wood forward a measured step per stroke.

“Each element was modest by itself. The Dutchman’s genius was to combine these parts in order that they acted within a perfectly controlled order, sawing on every descending motion while moving with each upward stroke. This constituted a remarkably clever application of fundamental parts.”

Which brings us up to today’s puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent a key the fundamental concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.

Round and Up

Design a mechanism that turns rotary motion to up-and-down motion. You have these items only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or sleeve into which a single the rods can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can mount components on a base, so that the components do not collapse.)

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

In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to propose (less celebrated) candidates for the world’s most impactful creation.