Can You Solve It? The Forgotten Netherlands Invention That Shaped the Contemporary World

One can find numerous candidates for the title of “planet’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.

According to a new book, however, that title should go to the automated timber mill invented through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.

“Prior to mechanised cutting, building a modest merchant vessel required approximately 10 sawyers working over three months,” notes the author. “With wind-driven lumber mills, the same amount of processed timber might be manufactured within a week.”

Thanks to their speedy mechanical saw, which turned logs to boards using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct ships faster compared to anyone else, which sparked a century of Dutch naval, economic and artistic dominance in the continent and the globe.

The First True Industrial Machine

Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s initial true factory apparatus.” A windmill turned a wheel. A single part transformed the circular motion into vertical motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed that same rotary motion into a lateral motion advancing the log to the blade. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead a measured step each stroke.

“Every component seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to integrate these parts in order that they operated within a perfectly controlled order, sawing with each descending motion while advancing on every upward motion. It was a remarkably intelligent application of basic parts.”

Which brings us to the current puzzle. I’d like you to reimagine a key the fundamental concepts underpinning this historic machine.

Round and Up

Construct a mechanism that turns circular motion into up-and-down motion. You have these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing into which one of the bars will fit snugly. (Assume you can put things on a base, so the components do not collapse.)

I’ll be back at 5pm UK time featuring the solution.

In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to propose (non obvious) contenders for the world’s greatest creation.