Can You Solve This? That Forgotten Netherlands Invention Which Shaped the Contemporary World

One can find many candidates for the designation as “world’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor.

According to a recent publication, however, that honor belongs to a mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.

“Prior to mechanised cutting, constructing a simple merchant vessel necessitated around ten sawyers working for three months,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of cut lumber could be produced in less than a week.”

Owing to their rapid mechanical cutter, which converted logs into boards with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct vessels more quickly than anyone else, an advantage that unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, economic as well as artistic supremacy across Europe and the globe.

The Original True Industrial Device

The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s first true factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. A single part converted its rotary movement into up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same spinning motion into a lateral motion advancing the timber toward the blade. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead one precise increment per cycle.

“Each element seemed simple by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine these parts in order that they acted within a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each descending motion while advancing with each return motion. It was a remarkably intelligent application of fundamental parts.”

Which leads us up to the current challenge. The task is for you to reimagine a key the basic ideas underpinning this historic machine.

Round and Up

Construct a machine that turns rotary motion to up-and-down action. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing through which a single the rods will fit perfectly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a base, so the components don’t fall down.)

I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the solution.

In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please propose (non obvious) candidates for the planet’s greatest invention.