🔗 Share this article Are You Able to Solve It? That Forgotten Netherlands Creation That Forged the Contemporary Globe There are many candidates to claim the title of “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor. According to a recent publication, however, that title should go to a automated sawmill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593. “Prior to mechanised cutting, constructing a modest trading ship required approximately ten sawyers laboring for 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber might be manufactured in less than a week.” Owing to their speedy mechanical cutter, that turned timber to planks with almost no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct ships faster compared to anyone else, which sparked a century of Netherlands maritime, financial and cultural dominance in the continent and the globe. The Original True Industrial Device The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, represented “mankind’s initial true factory apparatus.” A windmill turned a wheel. One component converted its circular movement to vertical motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed the rotary movement into a sideway’s movement feeding the log toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the wood ahead a measured step per stroke. “Each element was modest on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to integrate them so the machine acted in a perfectly controlled order, sawing on every descending stroke and advancing with each upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly clever application of fundamental components.” Which leads us up to today’s challenge. I’d like you to reimagine one of the fundamental concepts behind Corneliszoon’s invention. Round and Up Construct a machine which converts circular movement to up-and-down action. Your available these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing into which a single the bars will fit snugly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a stand, so that the parts do not collapse.) I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the answer. Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (less celebrated) candidates as the world’s greatest creation.