Are You Able to Crack It? The Forgotten Netherlands Creation Which Shaped our Modern Globe

One can find many contenders to claim the designation as “world’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.

As per a new book, though, that title belongs to the mechanised sawmill invented through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.

“Before mechanised sawing, building a simple merchant vessel required approximately 10 sawyers laboring for 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered sawmills, the same amount of processed timber could be produced within a week.”

Thanks to this rapid mechanical saw, that turned logs to boards with virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders could build vessels more quickly than any other nation, which unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, financial and cultural supremacy across Europe and the world.

The Original Genuine Industrial Machine

The inventor's sawmill, contends the writer, represented “mankind’s initial true industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. One component transformed its rotary motion to vertical motion for the saw. Another component changed the rotary motion into a lateral motion advancing the timber to the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the log ahead one precise increment per stroke.

“Each element was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to integrate these parts so the machine acted in a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every downward stroke while moving with each return stroke. It was a remarkably clever use of fundamental components.”

Which leads us up to today’s puzzle. The task is for you to reinvent a key the fundamental concepts behind Corneliszoon’s invention.

Circular to Vertical

Construct a mechanism which converts rotary motion into vertical motion. Your available these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a tube or housing into which a single the bars will fit perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to mount components on a base, so the parts do not fall down.)

The solution returns later today UK featuring the solution.

Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s most impactful creation.