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One can find numerous candidates to claim the title of “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.

As per a new book, though, that honor belongs to the mechanised timber mill conceived through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.

“Prior to mechanised sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel required approximately 10 sawyers laboring over 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven lumber mills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be manufactured within a week.”

Owing to their rapid mechanical saw, that converted timber into boards with almost no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct ships more quickly compared to anyone else, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands naval, financial as well as cultural dominance across Europe and the world.

The Original True Manufacturing Device

The inventor's sawmill, argues the writer, represented “mankind’s first authentic industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. A single part converted its rotary movement into up-and-down action to power the cutting blade. Another component changed the spinning movement into a sideway’s motion feeding the log to the blade. A ratchet system shifted the log ahead one precise increment each cycle.

“Each element seemed modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to combine these parts so they operated within a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing with each descending stroke and moving on every upward stroke. This constituted a remarkably clever use of basic components.”

A fact that brings us up to today’s puzzle. The task is for you to reimagine a key the fundamental concepts behind Corneliszoon’s invention.

Circular to Vertical

Design a mechanism which converts rotary movement to vertical motion. You have these items only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a cylinder or sleeve into which a single the bars can slide snugly. (Assume you can mount components on a base, so the components don’t collapse.)

The solution returns at 5pm UK with the answer.

Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (less celebrated) candidates as the world’s greatest creation.