🔗 Share this article Are You Able to Crack It? The Forgotten Netherlands Invention Which Shaped our Modern Globe One can find numerous contenders to claim the designation as “world’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine. According to a new book, however, that honor belongs to a mechanised timber mill invented through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593. “Before automated sawing, building a simple merchant vessel required approximately ten sawyers working for three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of cut lumber could be manufactured within seven days.” Owing to their rapid mechanical cutter, which turned logs to planks with virtually no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct ships faster compared to any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, financial and artistic dominance across Europe and the world. The First True Manufacturing Device Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues Dávila, represented “mankind’s initial authentic factory apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component transformed the rotary motion into vertical action for the cutting blade. Another component changed the spinning motion into a lateral movement advancing the timber toward the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the wood forward a measured step per cycle. “Every component seemed simple by itself. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to combine them in order that the machine acted within a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every descending stroke while moving with each upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly clever use of basic components.” A fact that leads us to today’s puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent one of the fundamental ideas behind this historic machine. Circular to Vertical Construct a machine that turns rotary movement to up-and-down motion. Your available these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing through which one of the bars can slide perfectly. (Assume you can mount components on a base, so the parts don’t collapse.) The solution returns later today UK time featuring the solution. Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to propose (non obvious) candidates as the world’s most impactful invention.