🔗 Share this article Can You Solve It? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Forged our Modern World There are many candidates for the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor. As per a recent publication, though, that title belongs to a automated sawmill conceived by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593. “Before mechanised cutting, constructing a simple merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten lumberjacks laboring for 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber could be manufactured within a week.” Owing to this rapid automated saw, that turned logs to planks using virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders could build vessels faster than any other nation, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch naval, economic and artistic supremacy across Europe and the globe. The Original True Industrial Device The inventor's sawmill, contends Dávila, represented “mankind’s initial true industrial machine.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. A single part transformed its rotary motion into up-and-down motion for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the rotary movement into a sideway’s movement feeding the timber toward the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the wood ahead a measured step each cycle. “Each element was modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius was to combine these parts in order that they operated within a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every descending motion while advancing on every upward motion. This constituted a remarkably intelligent use of fundamental parts.” Which brings us up to the current puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent one of the basic ideas underpinning this historic machine. Circular to Vertical Construct a mechanism which converts circular motion to vertical action. Your available these items only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a tube or sleeve through which a single the bars will fit snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so that the components don’t collapse.) The solution returns at 5pm UK with the solution. In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please suggest (non obvious) candidates for the planet’s greatest creation.