Some see Dean Kamen as a Willy Wonka character whose most famous invention - the Segway personal transporter - is still the butt of jokes. Others compare him to Henry Ford. His next project, after perfecting an electric car, is to 'to fix the world' - using a 200-year-old engine nobody else thinks can work.

From the archive:

Refactor Everything!

Dean Kamen finally announces his new product today.

Stirling engines -- great on paper but it's been hard so far to build practical ones.

Lindsay Publications has reprinted a lot of old 1900s - 1950s books detailing various concepts and ideas, including how to lay out sheet metal for ornate structures, building engines (combustion and Stirling), as well as subjects like steam power and wind power generation.

Dean Kamen: part man, part machine