🔗 Share this article Are You Able to Solve This? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Shaped our Modern World One can find numerous candidates for the designation as “world’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine. As per a recent publication, however, that title should go to the automated sawmill invented through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593. “Prior to mechanised sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel necessitated around 10 sawyers working for three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber could be produced within a week.” Thanks to this rapid automated saw, which converted timber to planks using almost no human effort, the Dutch could build vessels faster than any other nation, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands naval, economic and artistic dominance in Europe and the world. The First True Manufacturing Device Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends Dávila, was “mankind’s initial authentic industrial machine.” A windmill turned a gear. One component transformed the circular movement to up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. Another component changed the spinning movement into a sideway’s motion feeding the log to the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the log forward a measured step each stroke. “Each element was modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius was to integrate these parts in order that they acted in a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every descending motion and moving with each upward stroke. This constituted a remarkably intelligent application of fundamental parts.” Which brings us up to the current challenge. I’d like you to reinvent one of the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic machine. Round and Up Construct a mechanism which converts rotary movement into vertical motion. Your available these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve into which one of the rods will fit perfectly. (Assume you can mount components on a base, so that the parts don’t fall down.) The solution returns later today UK time featuring the solution. In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (non obvious) candidates as the world’s most impactful invention.