🔗 Share this article Can You Solve This? That Forgotten Dutch Creation Which Forged the Contemporary Globe One can find numerous candidates for the designation as “planet’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor. According to a new book, though, that title belongs to the automated sawmill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593. “Before mechanised sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel required around 10 lumberjacks laboring for three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber could be produced within seven days.” Thanks to their rapid mechanical cutter, that converted logs to boards with almost no human effort, Dutch builders could build vessels more quickly than any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch naval, financial as well as cultural dominance across Europe and the globe. The First Genuine Manufacturing Device The inventor's sawmill, contends the writer, was “mankind’s first true factory apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. A single part transformed the circular motion into up-and-down action for the saw. Another component changed the spinning motion into a sideway’s movement advancing the log to the blade. A ratchet system moved the log ahead one precise increment per stroke. “Each element seemed simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate them in order that the machine acted within a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each descending stroke and moving with each return motion. This constituted a remarkably clever use of basic parts.” Which leads us up to today’s puzzle. I’d like for you to reinvent a key the basic concepts underpinning this historic invention. Round and Up Construct a mechanism which converts rotary movement into vertical motion. Your available these items only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a tube or housing through which a single the rods will fit perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so that the components don’t fall down.) I’ll be back at 5pm UK time featuring the solution. Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to suggest (non obvious) candidates as the planet’s greatest invention.