🔗 Share this article Are You Able to Solve It? That Forgotten Dutch Invention That Shaped the Contemporary Globe One can find many contenders for the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor. According to a new book, though, that honor belongs to the mechanised sawmill conceived through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593. “Before automated sawing, building a simple merchant vessel necessitated around 10 sawyers working over 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven sawmills, the same amount of cut lumber could be produced within a week.” Thanks to their speedy mechanical cutter, which converted logs into planks using virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to construct vessels more quickly than any other nation, which sparked a century of Netherlands maritime, financial and artistic dominance across the continent and the world. The Original Genuine Manufacturing Machine Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues Dávila, represented “mankind’s first authentic factory apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a gear. One component converted its circular movement to up-and-down motion for the saw. A separate mechanism changed the rotary movement into a lateral motion feeding the timber toward the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the wood forward one precise increment each stroke. “Each element was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to combine these parts so they operated within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting with each downward stroke and moving with each return stroke. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of fundamental parts.” Which brings us to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reinvent a key the basic concepts behind Corneliszoon’s machine. Circular to Vertical Design a machine which converts circular movement into up-and-down action. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or housing into which a single the rods will fit snugly. (Assume you can mount components on a stand, so the parts don’t collapse.) I’ll be back at 5pm UK time featuring the solution. In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) candidates as the planet’s most impactful creation.