Are You Able to Crack This? The Overlooked Netherlands Invention That Shaped the Contemporary Globe

There are numerous contenders for the designation as “world’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor.

According to a recent publication, however, that title should go to a mechanised timber mill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.

“Before mechanised sawing, building a simple merchant vessel necessitated around 10 sawyers laboring over 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered sawmills, an identical quantity of processed timber might be manufactured in less than seven days.”

Thanks to their speedy mechanical cutter, that converted logs into planks 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 supremacy in the continent and the globe.

The Original True Industrial Device

The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s initial true factory apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. A single part converted its circular motion into vertical action to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same spinning motion into a lateral motion advancing the timber toward the blade. A ratchet system moved the wood forward a measured step each cycle.

“Each element was simple on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine them so they acted within a perfectly controlled order, sawing on every descending motion and moving with each upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly clever application of basic parts.”

Which leads us up to the current puzzle. The task is you to reimagine a key the fundamental concepts behind Corneliszoon’s invention.

Circular to Vertical

Construct a mechanism that turns circular movement to vertical motion. Your available these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or housing through which one of the rods can slide perfectly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a base, so that the parts do not fall down.)

I’ll be back later today UK time featuring the answer.

Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please propose (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s greatest invention.