Can You Crack It? The Overlooked Netherlands Invention That Forged the Contemporary World

One can find numerous contenders to claim the title of “world’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.

According to a recent publication, however, that honor belongs to the automated timber mill conceived through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.

“Prior to automated sawing, constructing a simple trading ship required around ten sawyers working over 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same quantity of processed timber might be produced within a week.”

Owing to this rapid automated saw, which turned timber to boards with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch were able to build ships faster compared to any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, financial and cultural supremacy in Europe and the world.

The First True Manufacturing Device

The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, was “mankind’s first authentic industrial apparatus.” A windmill rotated a wheel. A single part transformed the rotary movement to up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. Another component changed the spinning movement into a sideway’s motion advancing the log to the blade. A ratchet system moved the wood ahead one precise increment each cycle.

“Every component was simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to combine these parts so the machine acted in a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every downward motion while moving on every return stroke. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of fundamental components.”

Which leads us to today’s puzzle. The task is for you to reimagine a key the basic ideas behind this historic machine.

Circular to Vertical

Construct a mechanism which converts rotary movement into vertical action. You have these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing through which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to mount components on a base, so the parts don’t collapse.)

The solution returns at 5pm UK time with the answer.

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