🔗 Share this article Can You Solve This? The Forgotten Netherlands Invention Which Forged our Contemporary World One can find numerous contenders to claim the title of “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor. According to a recent publication, though, that title should go to a mechanised timber mill invented by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593. “Before mechanised cutting, constructing a simple trading ship necessitated around ten lumberjacks laboring over three months,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same amount of cut lumber could be produced within seven days.” Thanks to their rapid automated saw, which turned timber to planks with almost no human effort, Dutch builders could build ships faster than anyone else, which sparked a century of Dutch maritime, financial and artistic supremacy in Europe and the globe. The Original Genuine Manufacturing Device Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends Dávila, represented “mankind’s first true industrial machine.” A wind turbine turned a gear. One component converted its rotary motion to vertical action to power the cutting blade. Another component transformed the rotary movement into a lateral movement advancing the timber toward the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the wood forward one precise increment each cycle. “Every component was simple on its own. The Dutchman’s genius was to combine these parts so they operated in a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every descending stroke and advancing on every return motion. This constituted an astonishingly clever application of fundamental parts.” A fact that brings us up to the current puzzle. The task is you to reimagine a key the basic concepts underpinning this historic machine. Circular to Vertical Construct a mechanism that turns circular movement into vertical action. You have these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or sleeve through which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a stand, so that the components don’t collapse.) I’ll be back at 5pm UK featuring the solution. Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (non obvious) contenders as the planet’s most impactful invention.