🔗 Share this article Are You Able to Solve This? That Overlooked Dutch Creation That Forged our Modern World There are many candidates to claim the title of “planet’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor. According to a recent publication, however, that title should go to a mechanised sawmill conceived through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593. “Before automated cutting, building a modest merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten sawyers laboring over three months,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same quantity of processed timber could be manufactured within seven days.” Owing to their speedy automated cutter, which converted timber to planks using almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct ships more quickly than any other nation, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, economic and artistic dominance in the continent and the world. The First Genuine Industrial Machine The inventor's sawmill, contends the writer, represented “humanity’s initial true industrial machine.” A windmill turned a gear. One component transformed its rotary movement into up-and-down action to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the spinning motion into a sideway’s movement advancing the timber toward the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the log forward a measured step each cycle. “Each element was modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius was to integrate these parts in order that the machine acted in a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting on every downward motion and advancing with each upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly clever use of fundamental components.” Which brings us up to the current challenge. The task is for you to reimagine one of the basic concepts behind this historic machine. Round and Up Construct a machine which converts circular motion into up-and-down action. Your available these items only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or housing through which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so that the components don’t fall down.) The solution returns at 5pm UK time featuring the solution. In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please propose (non obvious) candidates as the planet’s most impactful invention.