Are You Able to Crack It? The Overlooked Netherlands Invention That Shaped our Modern Globe

There are numerous contenders for the title of “world’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.

As per a recent publication, though, that honor should go to the mechanised timber mill invented through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.

“Prior to automated cutting, constructing a modest trading ship necessitated approximately 10 sawyers working over 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered sawmills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be produced within seven days.”

Thanks to this speedy automated cutter, which turned logs into boards using virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders could build vessels faster compared to any other nation, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, financial and artistic supremacy across the continent and the globe.

The First Genuine Manufacturing Machine

The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “mankind’s initial authentic industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. A single part converted its rotary movement to vertical motion for the cutting blade. Another component transformed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s motion advancing the timber to the blade. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead one precise increment each cycle.

“Every component was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine these parts in order that the machine acted in a perfectly controlled order, sawing with each downward motion while moving with each return motion. This constituted a remarkably clever application of fundamental parts.”

Which brings us to the current challenge. I’d like you to reinvent one of the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic machine.

Round and Up

Design a machine that turns circular movement into up-and-down motion. You have these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve into which one of the bars can slide perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so the parts don’t collapse.)

The solution returns later today UK time with the solution.

Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please suggest (less celebrated) candidates for the planet’s most impactful invention.