🔗 Share this article Are You Able to Crack It? That Forgotten Netherlands Creation Which Forged our Modern World There are many candidates for the title of “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor. As per a recent publication, however, that title should go to a automated timber mill invented by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593. “Prior to mechanised cutting, constructing a modest trading ship necessitated around ten sawyers laboring for three months,” notes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of processed timber could be manufactured within a week.” Thanks to this rapid automated saw, which turned timber into planks using almost no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to construct vessels faster than anyone else, an advantage that sparked a century of Dutch naval, financial and artistic supremacy across the continent and the world. The First True Industrial Device The inventor's lumber mill, contends Dávila, represented “mankind’s initial authentic industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. A single part converted the rotary motion to vertical action to power the saw. Another component changed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s motion feeding the timber to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the log ahead a measured step per cycle. “Every component was modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius was to combine these parts in order that they acted in a perfectly controlled order, cutting with each downward motion while advancing with each return motion. It was an astonishingly clever use of fundamental parts.” A fact that leads us to today’s puzzle. The task is you to reinvent a key the basic ideas behind this historic invention. Circular to Vertical Design a mechanism that turns circular motion into vertical motion. You have these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or sleeve through which a single the rods can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so the components do not fall down.) The solution returns at 5pm UK with the answer. In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s most impactful invention.