🔗 Share this article Can You Crack It? The Forgotten Netherlands Creation Which Forged the Contemporary World There are many candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine. As per a recent publication, though, that title belongs to a automated timber mill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593. “Before automated cutting, constructing a modest trading ship required approximately 10 sawyers laboring for 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, the same amount of cut lumber might be produced in less than a week.” Owing to this rapid mechanical cutter, that converted timber to boards with almost no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct vessels faster than any other nation, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, economic as well as artistic supremacy in the continent and the globe. The First Genuine Industrial Device Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues the writer, represented “mankind’s initial authentic factory machine.” A windmill rotated a wheel. A single part converted the circular movement to vertical action for the cutting blade. Another component changed that same rotary motion into a lateral motion advancing the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the wood ahead one precise increment per cycle. “Every component seemed modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to integrate them in order that the machine acted in a perfectly controlled order, sawing on every descending motion and advancing on every return stroke. It was a remarkably intelligent application of basic components.” Which brings us to today’s puzzle. I’d like for you to reinvent a key the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic invention. Round and Up Design a mechanism that turns rotary movement to up-and-down motion. Your available these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve into which a single the rods can slide perfectly. (Assume you can mount components on a stand, so the components don’t fall down.) The solution returns at 5pm UK time with the solution. In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please suggest (non obvious) candidates for the world’s most impactful invention.