🔗 Share this article Are You Able to Solve This? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Shaped our Contemporary World One can find numerous contenders for the designation as “planet’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor. According to a new book, though, that honor belongs to the mechanised timber mill conceived through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593. “Before mechanised cutting, building a simple trading ship required around 10 sawyers working over three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of cut lumber might be manufactured within a week.” Thanks to their rapid mechanical cutter, which converted logs into boards using almost no human effort, Dutch builders were able to construct ships more quickly compared to any other nation, which unleashed a century of Netherlands maritime, economic as well as artistic dominance across the continent and the globe. The First Genuine Industrial Device Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues Dávila, was “humanity’s initial authentic industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. A single part transformed the circular motion to vertical motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed that same spinning movement into a lateral motion advancing the log to the blade. A ratchet system moved the wood ahead one precise increment per cycle. “Every component was simple by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine these parts in order that they acted within a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each descending stroke while moving on every upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent use of basic parts.” A fact that leads us up to the current puzzle. I’d like for you to reinvent a key the fundamental ideas behind Corneliszoon’s machine. Round and Up Design a mechanism that turns rotary motion to up-and-down motion. Your available these components only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve through which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so that the parts don’t collapse.) The solution returns later today UK with the solution. Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to propose (non obvious) contenders as the planet’s greatest invention.