🔗 Share this article Can You Solve It? The Forgotten Netherlands Invention That Shaped our Contemporary World One can find numerous contenders to claim the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine. According to a new book, however, that title belongs to a automated sawmill conceived through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593. “Before automated cutting, constructing a modest merchant vessel required approximately ten lumberjacks working for 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered sawmills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be manufactured within a week.” Owing to their speedy mechanical cutter, that turned timber to boards with almost no human effort, the Dutch could build vessels faster compared to anyone else, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, financial and artistic dominance in the continent and the world. The First True Industrial Device The inventor's sawmill, argues Dávila, was “humanity’s initial true industrial machine.” A windmill rotated a wheel. A single part transformed the circular movement into vertical motion for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed that same rotary movement into a sideway’s motion feeding the timber to the blade. A ratchet system shifted the wood forward a measured step per stroke. “Each element was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine these parts so they operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing with each descending stroke while moving on every upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly clever use of basic components.” Which brings us to today’s challenge. I’d like you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts behind Corneliszoon’s invention. Round and Up Construct a machine that turns circular movement to up-and-down action. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or housing through which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a base, so the components do not collapse.) I’ll be back at 5pm UK featuring the answer. In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to propose (non obvious) contenders for the world’s greatest invention.