Are You Able to Solve It? The Forgotten Dutch Creation Which Shaped our Modern World

One can find numerous contenders for the designation as “planet’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.

According to a new book, though, that honor belongs to the automated timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.

“Prior to mechanised sawing, building a modest trading ship necessitated around ten lumberjacks laboring for 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of processed timber could be manufactured within seven days.”

Thanks to this speedy mechanical saw, which converted timber to boards using virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to construct vessels more quickly than anyone else, which unleashed a century of Netherlands maritime, economic as well as cultural supremacy across Europe and the globe.

The First True Manufacturing Machine

The inventor's sawmill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s initial authentic factory apparatus.” A windmill rotated a wheel. One component converted its rotary movement into up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s motion feeding the log toward the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead one precise increment per stroke.

“Every component was simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to integrate them in order that they operated within a perfectly controlled order, sawing with each descending motion and moving on every return motion. This constituted a remarkably clever application of fundamental components.”

Which brings us up to the current puzzle. The task is you to reinvent a key the fundamental ideas behind Corneliszoon’s machine.

Circular to Vertical

Design a machine which converts circular movement to up-and-down motion. You have these items only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or housing through which one of the bars will fit perfectly. (Assume you can put things on a stand, so that the parts do not collapse.)

The solution returns later today UK time with the answer.

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