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

One can find many candidates for the title of “planet’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.

According to a new book, though, that title should go to a automated timber mill conceived through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.

“Prior to mechanised cutting, building a modest trading ship required approximately ten lumberjacks laboring for 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of cut lumber could be manufactured within seven days.”

Thanks to their speedy automated cutter, that converted logs into boards with almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to build vessels faster compared to anyone else, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch naval, economic and cultural supremacy in Europe and the world.

The Original Genuine Manufacturing Device

The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s first authentic factory apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a gear. One component transformed its rotary motion to vertical motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism changed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s movement advancing the log toward the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the log ahead a measured step each stroke.

“Each element seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to integrate these parts in order that they acted in a perfectly controlled order, cutting on every descending stroke while advancing on every return stroke. It was an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental components.”

A fact that leads us to the current puzzle. I’d like you to reimagine a key the basic ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.

Round and Up

Design a mechanism that turns rotary movement to up-and-down action. Your available these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or housing through which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a stand, so that the components don’t fall down.)

The solution returns later today UK featuring the answer.

In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please propose (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s greatest invention.