🔗 Share this article Can You Crack It? That Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Shaped our Contemporary Globe One can find numerous contenders to claim the title of “world’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine. According to a recent publication, though, that title belongs to a automated sawmill invented through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593. “Before automated cutting, building a modest trading ship required around ten sawyers working for 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, the same amount of processed timber might be manufactured in less than a week.” Thanks to their speedy automated cutter, that converted timber to boards with almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct vessels faster than anyone else, which unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, economic and cultural dominance in Europe and the world. The First Genuine Industrial Device The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “mankind’s first true factory apparatus.” A windmill turned a gear. One component transformed its circular motion to up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s motion feeding the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism moved the log forward a measured step per stroke. “Every component seemed simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to integrate these parts in order that the machine acted in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every downward motion and moving on every upward stroke. It was a remarkably intelligent use of basic parts.” Which brings us to the current challenge. I’d like you to reinvent a key the fundamental concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention. Circular to Vertical Construct a mechanism that turns rotary motion into up-and-down action. You have these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or housing through which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Assume you can put things on a base, so that the components do not fall down.) The solution returns later today UK with the solution. In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s most impactful creation.