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There are many candidates for the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.

According to a new book, however, that title should go to the mechanised timber mill invented by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.

“Before automated sawing, constructing a modest trading ship required approximately 10 sawyers laboring over 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, an identical amount of cut lumber might be manufactured within a week.”

Thanks to this speedy automated cutter, that converted logs to boards using almost no human effort, the Dutch could construct vessels faster than anyone else, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, economic as well as cultural supremacy across the continent and the globe.

The First True Industrial Machine

Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends Dávila, represented “humanity’s first true industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component transformed its rotary movement to vertical action for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s motion feeding the timber to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the log ahead one precise increment each cycle.

“Every component was simple on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to combine them in order that the machine acted in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing with each downward motion and advancing on every upward stroke. It was an astonishingly intelligent application of basic components.”

Which brings us to today’s puzzle. I’d like you to reimagine a key the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic invention.

Circular to Vertical

Design a machine which converts circular movement to up-and-down action. You have these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or housing through which one of the rods can slide perfectly. (Assume you can mount components on a base, so the parts don’t collapse.)

I’ll be back at 5pm UK featuring the answer.

Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please suggest (non obvious) contenders as the world’s greatest invention.