Are You Able to Solve This? The Forgotten Dutch Creation Which Shaped the Modern World

There are numerous contenders for the designation as “world’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.

As per a new book, though, that honor should go to a mechanised timber mill conceived through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.

“Prior to automated cutting, building a modest merchant vessel required approximately ten sawyers working over three months,” writes the author. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be manufactured within seven days.”

Thanks to this rapid automated saw, which turned logs to planks using almost no manual labor, the Dutch could construct ships more quickly than anyone else, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, economic and artistic supremacy in the continent and the globe.

The Original True Industrial Device

The inventor's sawmill, argues Dávila, represented “mankind’s first authentic factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. A single part converted the circular motion to vertical motion for the saw. A separate mechanism transformed the spinning motion into a lateral movement advancing the log toward the blade. A ratchet system moved the wood ahead a measured step each cycle.

“Every component was simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine these parts in order that the machine acted in a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every descending stroke while advancing with each upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly clever application of fundamental components.”

Which brings us up to today’s puzzle. The task is for you to reimagine a key the fundamental concepts underpinning this historic machine.

Circular to Vertical

Construct a machine that turns rotary movement to vertical motion. You have these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or housing through which a single the rods will fit snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a stand, so that the parts do not fall down.)

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

In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please propose (non obvious) candidates as the planet’s greatest invention.