Are You Able to Crack This? That Forgotten Netherlands Invention Which Shaped our Modern Globe

There are numerous candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor.

As per a recent publication, though, that title belongs to the automated sawmill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.

“Prior to automated sawing, constructing a modest trading ship necessitated approximately ten sawyers laboring for 90 days,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same quantity of processed timber might be manufactured in less than a week.”

Thanks to their speedy mechanical saw, which turned logs to boards with almost no manual labor, the Dutch could construct ships faster than any other nation, which sparked a century of Netherlands maritime, economic as well as artistic dominance across the continent and the globe.

The First Genuine Industrial Machine

The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, was “mankind’s first authentic industrial machine.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. One component transformed the circular movement to vertical motion for the saw. Another component transformed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s motion advancing the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the wood forward one precise increment per cycle.

“Every component was modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to integrate them so they acted in a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing with each descending motion and advancing with each return stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of basic components.”

A fact that brings us to the current puzzle. The task is you to reimagine a key the basic concepts behind this historic machine.

Circular to Vertical

Design a mechanism which converts rotary movement into vertical motion. Your available these items only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve through which a single the rods will fit perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a stand, so the components don’t collapse.)

The solution returns later today UK with the answer.

In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s most impactful invention.