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One can find numerous candidates to claim the designation as “world’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.

As per a new book, however, that title should go to the mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.

“Before mechanised cutting, building a modest trading ship required approximately 10 lumberjacks laboring over 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven lumber mills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be manufactured in less than a week.”

Thanks to this rapid mechanical cutter, that turned timber into boards using almost no manual labor, Dutch builders could build vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, economic and cultural dominance across the continent and the globe.

The Original Genuine Manufacturing Device

Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends the writer, was “mankind’s initial true factory machine.” A windmill rotated a gear. One component transformed the rotary motion to vertical motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed the rotary movement into a lateral movement advancing the timber to the blade. A ratchet system moved the wood ahead one precise increment per cycle.

“Each element seemed simple on its own. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to integrate them so they acted in a perfectly controlled order, cutting on every descending stroke and moving on every upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental components.”

A fact that leads us up to the current challenge. I’d like you to reinvent a key the basic concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.

Circular to Vertical

Design a machine that turns rotary motion into vertical action. You have these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or housing into which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that you can mount components on a base, so the components do not fall down.)

The solution returns later today UK with the solution.

Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to suggest (non obvious) candidates for the planet’s greatest invention.