December 4: Cryonics

Robert Ettinger, whose 1948 sci fi story, “The Penultimate Trump” (published in Startling Stories) promulgated the notion of preserving bodies so that future medical breakthroughs can restore life to them, was born in Atlantic City on this date in 1918. In 1962, Ettinger, teaching physics and math at the college level in Michigan, self-published The Prospect of Immortality, which eventually attracted the interest of Doubleday and became a Book of the Month Club hit. As Ettinger became a media celebrity, another writer on the subject, Evan Cooper (penname Nathan Duhring) launched the Life Extension Society (LES), which eventually evolved into the Cryonics Institute (the word “cryonics” was coined in 1965) and the Immortalist Society, both under Ettinger’s direction. Ettinger was also author of the 1972 book, Man into Superman, an early classic of “transhumanism,” which proposes the achievement of immortality by merging human and artificial intelligence. Ettinger died on July 23, 2011, and became the Institute’s 106th “patient.”
“The ‘tragedy’ of the slow growth of immortalism pertains mostly to them, and perhaps to you – not so much to me or to us, the committed immortalists. We already have made our arrangements for cryostasis after clinical death – signed our contracts with existing organizations and allocated the money. We will have our chance, and with a little bit of luck will ‘taste the wine of centuries unborn.’ ” —Robert Ettinger