🔗 Share this article Can You Crack It? The Overlooked Dutch Creation Which Forged the Modern Globe There are numerous candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. 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 in 1593. “Prior to automated cutting, constructing a modest merchant vessel necessitated around ten sawyers working over 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical quantity of cut lumber might be manufactured within a week.” Owing to their rapid mechanical cutter, that turned timber into planks using almost no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct ships faster than anyone else, which sparked a century of Netherlands naval, economic and artistic supremacy across Europe and the world. The Original True Manufacturing Device Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s initial true factory machine.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part converted the circular movement to up-and-down action to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the spinning motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the log toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log ahead a measured step each cycle. “Each element was simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to integrate these parts in order that the machine operated within a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each descending stroke while moving on every return stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent use of basic components.” Which brings us up to the current challenge. The task is for you to reimagine a key the basic ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine. Round and Up Design a mechanism that turns rotary motion to up-and-down action. Your available these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or sleeve through which one of the bars can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a stand, so the parts don’t fall down.) The solution returns at 5pm UK time with the answer. Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to propose (non obvious) candidates as the world’s greatest invention.