🔗 Share this article Can You Solve This? That Forgotten Dutch Creation That Forged our Contemporary World One can find many contenders to claim the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine. According to a new book, though, that honor should go to the automated timber mill invented by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593. “Prior to automated cutting, building a simple trading ship required approximately ten lumberjacks laboring over three months,” writes the author. “With wind-driven lumber mills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be produced in less than seven days.” Owing to their speedy automated cutter, that converted logs into boards with virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders could construct vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Dutch maritime, economic as well as artistic supremacy across the continent and the globe. The First Genuine Manufacturing Machine Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s initial true industrial machine.” A windmill rotated a wheel. One component converted the rotary motion into up-and-down motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed that same rotary movement into a sideway’s motion advancing the timber to the blade. A ratchet system shifted the log forward one precise increment per stroke. “Every component was simple by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to combine these parts so they operated in a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each downward motion and advancing on every upward motion. It was a remarkably clever application of fundamental components.” A fact that brings us up to the current puzzle. I’d like you to reimagine a key the fundamental concepts behind this historic invention. Round and Up Design a mechanism that turns rotary movement into vertical motion. You have these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or housing into which a single the bars will fit snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a stand, so the parts don’t fall down.) The solution returns later today UK time with the answer. Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the planet’s greatest invention.