Can You Crack This? That Forgotten Netherlands Invention Which Forged the Modern Globe

One can find numerous contenders for the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.

According to a new book, though, that title belongs to the automated sawmill conceived by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.

“Before automated sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel necessitated approximately 10 sawyers working for three months,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, the same amount of processed timber might be produced within seven days.”

Owing to this speedy mechanical cutter, that turned logs into boards using almost no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to construct ships more quickly compared to any other nation, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands naval, economic and cultural dominance across Europe and the globe.

The First Genuine Manufacturing Machine

The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s initial authentic factory machine.” A wind turbine turned a gear. A single part converted the circular motion to up-and-down action to power the cutting blade. Another component changed that same rotary movement into a lateral motion advancing the log toward the blade. A ratchet system moved the log forward a measured step per cycle.

“Every component seemed simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine these parts in order that the machine operated within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting with each downward motion while moving with each return stroke. It was a remarkably clever application of fundamental components.”

A fact that leads us to today’s puzzle. I’d like for you to reimagine one of the fundamental ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.

Round and Up

Design a machine that turns circular motion to up-and-down motion. Your available these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing into which a single the bars will fit snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so that the components do not collapse.)

The solution returns later today UK with the solution.

Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s greatest invention.