🔗 Share this article Can You Solve It? That Overlooked Dutch Invention Which Shaped our Contemporary Globe There are many contenders for the designation as “world’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor. According to a new book, however, that title belongs to a mechanised timber mill invented by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593. “Before automated sawing, constructing a modest trading ship required around ten sawyers working for three months,” notes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber could be produced in less than a week.” Owing to this speedy automated saw, that turned logs to boards using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could build vessels faster compared to anyone else, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, economic and artistic supremacy across the continent and the world. The Original True Industrial Device The inventor's sawmill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s initial true industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component converted the circular movement to vertical action to power the saw. A separate mechanism changed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s motion feeding the log to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the wood ahead a measured step per cycle. “Every component was modest by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to combine them in order that the machine operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing with each downward stroke and advancing on every return motion. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent use of fundamental components.” Which brings us up to the current puzzle. The task is you to reinvent one of the fundamental ideas behind Corneliszoon’s machine. Circular to Vertical Construct a machine that turns circular motion to vertical motion. Your available these components only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or housing through which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so the parts do not collapse.) I’ll be back later today UK time featuring the answer. Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (non obvious) contenders as the world’s greatest creation.