🔗 Share this article Are You Able to Crack It? That Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Forged our Contemporary World There are many candidates for the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor. According to a new book, though, that title should go to a mechanised sawmill invented through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593. “Before mechanised cutting, building a modest trading ship required approximately ten sawyers working for 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical quantity of processed timber might be manufactured within a week.” Thanks to their rapid mechanical saw, that converted timber into boards with virtually no human effort, Dutch builders were able to build vessels more quickly compared to any other nation, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Dutch maritime, financial as well as artistic supremacy across the continent and the world. The First Genuine Industrial Device Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues the writer, represented “humanity’s first authentic industrial apparatus.” A windmill turned a gear. A single part converted the rotary movement to up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. Another component transformed that same spinning motion into a lateral movement feeding the log to the blade. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead a measured step per cycle. “Every component seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to combine these parts so the machine operated within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting on every downward stroke and advancing on every return motion. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental components.” Which brings us up to today’s challenge. I’d like you to reimagine a key the basic concepts behind Corneliszoon’s invention. Round and Up Design a machine which converts circular motion to up-and-down action. Your available these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing through which a single the rods can slide perfectly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a base, so the components don’t fall down.) I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the solution. In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s greatest creation.