Can You Solve This? The Forgotten Netherlands Creation That Forged our Contemporary World

There are many candidates to claim the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.

According to a recent publication, though, that title should go to the mechanised timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.

“Before automated cutting, constructing a modest trading ship necessitated approximately ten sawyers laboring over three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of processed timber might be manufactured within a week.”

Owing to this speedy automated cutter, which converted logs to boards with almost no human effort, the Dutch could construct ships faster compared to any other nation, which sparked a century of Netherlands maritime, financial as well as artistic dominance in Europe and the globe.

The First Genuine Manufacturing Device

The inventor's sawmill, contends Dávila, represented “mankind’s first authentic industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a gear. A single part transformed the circular motion to vertical action for the saw. A separate mechanism transformed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s motion feeding the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log forward a measured step per stroke.

“Each element was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius was to integrate these parts in order that they operated in a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each descending motion while advancing with each upward stroke. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of basic components.”

Which leads us to today’s puzzle. I’d like for you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts underpinning this historic machine.

Round and Up

Construct a machine which converts rotary motion into up-and-down motion. Your available these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or sleeve into which a single the rods will fit snugly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a stand, so that the parts do not collapse.)

The solution returns later today UK with the answer.

Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to propose (non obvious) contenders as the planet’s most impactful creation.