🔗 Share this article Are You Able to Crack This? That Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Shaped our Contemporary Globe One can find many candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine. As per a new book, however, that honor belongs to the automated sawmill invented through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593. “Before mechanised sawing, constructing a simple trading ship required around 10 lumberjacks laboring for three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same amount of cut lumber could be produced in less than a week.” Owing to this rapid automated cutter, that converted timber to planks using almost no manual labor, Dutch builders could construct vessels faster than any other nation, which unleashed a century of Netherlands maritime, financial and cultural supremacy in the continent and the world. The First True Industrial Device The inventor's sawmill, contends Dávila, was “humanity’s first authentic factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. One component converted the rotary motion into vertical action for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the rotary motion into a lateral motion feeding the log to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the wood forward a measured step per cycle. “Each element seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to combine them in order that they operated within a perfectly controlled order, cutting with each descending motion while advancing on every return motion. This constituted a remarkably intelligent use of basic components.” Which leads us up to today’s puzzle. The task is you to reinvent a key the basic concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine. Circular to Vertical Design a mechanism that turns circular movement into vertical action. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or sleeve into which a single the rods will fit snugly. (Consider that you can mount components on a base, so that the parts don’t fall down.) The solution returns later today UK with the solution. Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) candidates for the world’s greatest creation.