🔗 Share this article Are You Able to Solve This? That Forgotten Netherlands Invention That Forged the Modern Globe There are numerous candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine. As per a new book, however, that title belongs to a mechanised sawmill invented by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593. “Prior to automated sawing, building a simple merchant vessel required around ten sawyers working over three months,” notes the author. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same amount of cut lumber might be produced in less than seven days.” Thanks to their speedy mechanical saw, that turned timber to boards using virtually no human effort, Dutch builders could construct ships more quickly than any other nation, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Dutch naval, financial as well as cultural dominance in Europe and the globe. The First Genuine Industrial Machine The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, was “mankind’s first authentic factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. A single part transformed the rotary movement to up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed the spinning motion into a sideway’s movement advancing the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism moved the log forward one precise increment per cycle. “Every component seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to integrate them so they operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting on every downward stroke and moving on every upward stroke. It was an astonishingly clever use of fundamental parts.” A fact that leads us to the current puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent a key the fundamental concepts behind this historic invention. Round and Up Construct a mechanism that turns circular motion into vertical motion. Your available these components only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing into which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Assume you can mount components on a stand, so the components do not collapse.) I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the answer. In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders for the world’s most impactful creation.