🔗 Share this article Are You Able to Solve This? That Overlooked Dutch Creation Which Forged the Contemporary World There are numerous candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine. As per a recent publication, however, that title belongs to a automated sawmill conceived through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593. “Prior to mechanised sawing, building a modest merchant vessel required approximately ten sawyers working over 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber could be produced in less than seven days.” Thanks to this speedy automated saw, that converted logs into boards using virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build ships more quickly compared to anyone else, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Netherlands naval, economic as well as cultural dominance across the continent and the globe. The Original Genuine Manufacturing Machine The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, was “mankind’s first authentic factory apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a gear. A single part converted its circular movement to vertical action to power the cutting blade. Another component changed that same spinning motion into a lateral motion advancing the timber toward the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the log ahead one precise increment per cycle. “Every component was simple on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to integrate these parts in order that they acted within a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every downward motion and advancing on every upward stroke. It was an astonishingly clever use of fundamental parts.” A fact that brings us to the current puzzle. The task is for you to reinvent a key the fundamental concepts underpinning this historic machine. Circular to Vertical Construct a machine that turns circular movement to up-and-down motion. You have these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a tube or sleeve through which a single the bars can slide snugly. (Assume you can put things on a base, so the components don’t fall down.) I’ll be back later today UK with the answer. Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please suggest (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s most impactful invention.