🔗 Share this article Are You Able to Solve It? The Forgotten Netherlands Invention Which Forged our Modern Globe One can find numerous candidates for the title of “planet’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor. According to a recent publication, though, that honor should go to a automated sawmill conceived through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593. “Prior to automated sawing, constructing a simple merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten lumberjacks working for 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of processed timber could be produced in less than seven days.” Owing to this rapid mechanical saw, which converted timber to planks with virtually no human effort, the Dutch could construct ships faster than any other nation, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Dutch naval, financial and artistic supremacy across the continent and the world. The First True Industrial Machine Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues Dávila, was “mankind’s first authentic industrial apparatus.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part transformed its circular movement into up-and-down motion to power the saw. Another component changed the rotary motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the timber to the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the wood forward one precise increment per stroke. “Each element was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius was to integrate them in order that they operated in a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each downward stroke and moving on every upward stroke. This constituted a remarkably clever use of basic components.” A fact that brings us up to the current challenge. The task is you to reinvent a key the fundamental ideas behind Corneliszoon’s machine. Round and Up Design a mechanism which converts circular movement into up-and-down motion. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a tube or sleeve through which one of the bars will fit snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so that the components don’t collapse.) I’ll be back later today UK time featuring the answer. In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to suggest (non obvious) candidates as the world’s greatest invention.