🔗 Share this article Can You Solve This? That Overlooked Netherlands Invention That Shaped the Modern Globe There are many candidates for the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor. As per a new book, though, that title belongs to the automated timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593. “Before automated cutting, building a modest trading ship required approximately ten sawyers laboring over 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of cut lumber might be produced in less than seven days.” Thanks to this rapid automated saw, which turned timber into planks using almost no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct ships faster compared to any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, economic and cultural supremacy across the continent and the world. The First Genuine Industrial Machine Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends Dávila, represented “mankind’s initial true industrial machine.” A windmill turned a wheel. A single part transformed its rotary movement into up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. Another component transformed that same rotary movement into a sideway’s motion feeding the timber to the blade. A ratchet system moved the log forward one precise increment each cycle. “Every component was modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to integrate them so they operated within a perfectly controlled order, sawing with each descending motion and advancing on every return motion. It was an astonishingly clever application of basic components.” A fact that leads us to today’s puzzle. The task is you to reinvent one of the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic machine. Circular to Vertical Design a machine which converts rotary motion to up-and-down action. Your available these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or housing into which a single the rods can slide perfectly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a stand, so the components don’t fall down.) The solution returns at 5pm UK time featuring the solution. Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) candidates as the planet’s greatest creation.