🔗 Share this article Can You Solve This? That Overlooked Dutch Invention That Shaped our Modern Globe One can find numerous contenders for the designation as “world’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor. As per a recent publication, however, that title should go to the automated timber mill conceived by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593. “Before mechanised sawing, building a simple merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten sawyers working for 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, the same amount of processed timber might be produced in less than seven days.” Owing to their speedy automated cutter, that converted logs into planks with almost no manual labor, Dutch builders could build vessels faster than anyone else, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Dutch maritime, economic as well as artistic supremacy in the continent and the globe. The First Genuine Industrial Device The inventor's sawmill, contends Dávila, represented “mankind’s initial true industrial machine.” A windmill turned a gear. One component transformed its circular movement into vertical motion for the saw. A separate mechanism transformed that same rotary motion into a lateral movement feeding the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism moved the wood forward a measured step per stroke. “Each element was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate them in order that the machine operated within a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every downward stroke and moving with each return stroke. This constituted a remarkably clever application of basic parts.” Which brings us to the current challenge. The task is you to reinvent one of the basic concepts behind this historic machine. Round and Up Construct a machine that turns rotary movement into vertical action. You have these items only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing into which one of the rods will fit perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so that the parts don’t fall down.) I’ll be back later today UK time with the solution. Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to propose (non obvious) contenders as the planet’s most impactful invention.