The latest invention by Dean Kamen is top secret, but speculation is that he's harnessed the power of a Stirling engine, which some say could revolutionize transportation and perhaps civilization as we know it. But skeptics abound today as in the past. Among those who have underestimated inventiveness in the past, U.S. Commissioner of Patents Charles Duell offered to retire in the 1890s because he thought everything of value had already been invented. It's easy to understand Duell's thinking a century ago when you consider the number of incredible inventions in the middle and late 19th century. And a tip of the hat on behalf of all beer drinkers and milk lovers to French chemist Louis Pasteur for perfecting a process to preserve beverages and foodstuffs in 1881.
Inventors are always ahead of their time.
Two in particular that fascinate me are Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Alva Edison. Their dreams and discoveries, separated by four centuries, truly transformed the world into something new, improved and unknown. Da Vinci's skills created wonderful art during the Renaissance, but his vision and genius also produced drawings of motor cars, flying machines and bicycles centuries before anyone could build them. Edison, as noted by inventions above, recognized the power and potential of electricity. One of his stranger and still undeveloped projects was anti-gravity underwear.