Are You Able to Crack This? The Overlooked Netherlands Invention That Forged the Contemporary World

One can find many candidates for the title of “world’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.

According to a new book, however, that title should go to the mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.

“Before automated cutting, constructing a modest trading ship necessitated around ten sawyers laboring over 90 days,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber could be manufactured in less than seven days.”

Owing to this speedy automated cutter, that turned logs into boards with almost no manual labor, the Dutch could construct vessels faster compared to anyone else, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, economic as well as artistic supremacy across the continent and the globe.

The Original Genuine Industrial Device

Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues the writer, represented “mankind’s initial authentic factory apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a gear. A single part transformed the rotary motion to vertical motion to power the saw. Another component transformed that same spinning movement into a lateral movement feeding the log to the blade. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead one precise increment each stroke.

“Each element was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius was to integrate them in order that they acted within a perfectly controlled order, cutting with each downward motion and moving with each upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of basic components.”

A fact that leads us to today’s puzzle. The task is for you to reinvent one of the basic concepts behind this historic invention.

Round and Up

Construct a machine that turns circular movement into vertical motion. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing into which one of the rods will fit perfectly. (Assume you can mount components on a base, so the components do not fall down.)

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

In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s most impactful invention.