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One can find many candidates to claim the title of “world’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.

As per a recent publication, though, that honor belongs to a automated timber mill conceived by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.

“Before mechanised sawing, building a modest trading ship required approximately ten sawyers laboring for three months,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be manufactured in less than seven days.”

Thanks to this rapid mechanical cutter, that converted timber into boards using almost no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct vessels faster than anyone else, an advantage that sparked a century of Netherlands naval, financial as well as artistic dominance in the continent and the globe.

The Original Genuine Manufacturing Device

Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “mankind’s first authentic industrial machine.” A windmill turned a gear. One component converted the rotary movement to up-and-down action for the saw. Another component changed that same rotary motion into a lateral movement advancing the log toward the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the wood forward a measured step per stroke.

“Every component seemed modest by itself. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to combine these parts in order that the machine operated within a precisely synchronized order, cutting on every downward stroke and moving with each return stroke. It was an astonishingly clever application of fundamental parts.”

A fact that leads us to today’s puzzle. I’d like you to reimagine one of the basic concepts behind this historic machine.

Circular to Vertical

Construct a mechanism which converts circular movement into vertical action. Your available these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a tube or housing into which a single the rods can slide perfectly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a stand, so the components do not fall down.)

I’ll be back later today UK time featuring the solution.

In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (less celebrated) candidates as the planet’s most impactful creation.