🔗 Share this article Are You Able to Crack This? The Forgotten Netherlands Creation Which Forged our Modern World There are numerous contenders for the title of “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine. According to a new book, though, that honor belongs to the mechanised sawmill conceived through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593. “Prior to mechanised sawing, constructing a simple merchant vessel necessitated around ten sawyers laboring for three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, the same amount of processed timber could be produced within seven days.” Thanks to their rapid mechanical saw, which converted logs to planks with almost no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to construct ships more quickly compared to anyone else, which sparked a century of Dutch naval, financial as well as artistic supremacy in the continent and the globe. The First Genuine Manufacturing Device The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s initial true factory apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. A single part transformed the circular movement into vertical motion for the cutting blade. Another component changed that same spinning movement into a lateral motion feeding the timber toward the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the log ahead one precise increment each stroke. “Each element seemed simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate these parts so the machine operated within a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing with each downward motion and advancing on every upward motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of basic parts.” Which brings us to today’s puzzle. The task is for you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts behind this historic machine. Circular to Vertical Design a mechanism which converts circular movement into up-and-down motion. Your available these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or housing into which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Assume you can put things on a stand, so the components do not fall down.) I’ll be back at 5pm UK time featuring the solution. Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders as the planet’s most impactful invention.