🔗 Share this article

There are numerous candidates to claim the designation as “world’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.

According to a new book, however, that honor belongs to the automated timber mill conceived through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.

“Before mechanised sawing, constructing a simple trading ship required approximately 10 sawyers working over three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same amount of processed timber could be produced in less than seven days.”

Thanks to their speedy mechanical saw, which converted logs to planks using almost no human effort, the Dutch could construct ships more quickly compared to anyone else, which sparked a century of Dutch naval, economic and artistic dominance in the continent and the world.

The Original True Manufacturing Machine

The inventor's lumber mill, contends Dávila, was “humanity’s first true industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component transformed its circular movement to up-and-down action to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed that same spinning movement into a lateral motion advancing the timber toward the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the wood forward a measured step per stroke.

“Each element was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate them so they operated in a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing with each descending motion and moving on every return stroke. It was a remarkably clever application of fundamental components.”

Which brings us to today’s challenge. The task is you to reimagine one of the fundamental ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.

Circular to Vertical

Design a mechanism that turns circular movement into up-and-down motion. Your available these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or housing through which one of the bars will fit perfectly. (Consider that you can mount components on a stand, so that the parts don’t collapse.)

The solution returns at 5pm UK time featuring the answer.

Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please propose (less celebrated) candidates as the planet’s most impactful invention.