🔗 Share this article Are You Able to Crack It? The Forgotten Dutch Creation That Shaped our Modern Globe One can find numerous candidates to claim the title of “world’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor. According to a recent publication, however, that honor should go to the mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593. “Before automated sawing, constructing a simple merchant vessel required around ten lumberjacks laboring for 90 days,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same amount of processed timber could be produced in less than seven days.” Owing to their speedy automated saw, that converted logs to planks with almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct vessels faster compared to anyone else, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, financial and cultural supremacy across the continent and the world. The Original True Industrial Device Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s initial true factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component converted its 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 cutter. A geared mechanism moved the log ahead a measured step each stroke. “Each element was simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine them in order that they operated within a perfectly controlled order, cutting with each descending motion and advancing with each upward stroke. It was an astonishingly clever use of fundamental components.” A fact that brings us up to the current puzzle. I’d like you to reimagine a key the fundamental ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention. Circular to Vertical Construct a mechanism which converts rotary motion into up-and-down motion. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or sleeve through which one of the rods will fit perfectly. (Consider that you can mount components on a base, so the components do not collapse.) I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the solution. Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please propose (non obvious) candidates for the planet’s greatest creation.