🔗 Share this article Can You Solve It? That Forgotten Netherlands Creation Which Shaped the Modern World One can find many candidates for the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine. According to a new book, however, that title belongs to the automated sawmill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593. “Before automated cutting, constructing a modest trading ship necessitated approximately 10 lumberjacks working for three months,” writes the author. “With wind-driven lumber mills, an identical amount of processed timber could be produced within a week.” Thanks to their speedy automated saw, which converted logs into boards using virtually no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct vessels more quickly than any other nation, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Netherlands naval, financial and artistic dominance across Europe and the world. The First Genuine Manufacturing Machine Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s first true industrial machine.” A windmill turned a wheel. One component converted its circular motion into up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed the spinning motion into a lateral movement advancing the log toward the blade. A geared mechanism moved the log forward one precise increment per cycle. “Each element seemed simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to integrate them so they acted within a precisely synchronized order, cutting on every descending motion and advancing on every upward motion. This constituted a remarkably intelligent use of basic parts.” Which leads us up to today’s challenge. The task is you to reimagine a key the fundamental ideas behind this historic invention. Round and Up Construct a machine which converts rotary movement to vertical motion. You have these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or sleeve through which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a stand, so that the parts do not collapse.) I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the answer. Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please suggest (non obvious) contenders as the planet’s most impactful creation.