🔗 Share this article Are You Able to Crack It? That Overlooked Dutch Invention Which Shaped the Contemporary World One can find numerous candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor. According to a recent publication, though, that honor should go to a mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593. “Before automated cutting, building a modest merchant vessel necessitated approximately 10 sawyers laboring for three months,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same amount of processed timber might be produced in less than a week.” Owing to this speedy mechanical cutter, that turned logs into planks using virtually no human effort, the Dutch could construct ships faster compared to any other nation, which sparked one hundred years of Dutch naval, financial and artistic supremacy across Europe and the world. The First Genuine Industrial Machine The inventor's sawmill, contends the writer, was “mankind’s initial authentic industrial machine.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. One component converted the circular motion to up-and-down action to power the saw. Another component transformed the rotary movement into a lateral motion feeding the log to the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log forward one precise increment each stroke. “Every component was modest on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine them in order that they operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing with each descending motion while advancing on every upward stroke. It was an astonishingly clever application of basic parts.” A fact that leads us up to the current puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent a key the fundamental ideas behind Corneliszoon’s invention. Round and Up Construct a mechanism that turns circular movement to up-and-down motion. You have these items only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or housing through which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a base, so that the parts don’t collapse.) The solution returns at 5pm UK time with the answer. In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please suggest (non obvious) candidates for the world’s most impactful invention.