1. Robert Chester Wilson Ettinger was an American academic, known as "the father of cryonics" because of the impact of his 1962 book The Prospect of Immortality.
22 Facts About Robert Ettinger
1. 2.
Robert Ettinger's body has been cryopreserved, like the bodies of his first and second wives, and his mother.
3.
Robert Ettinger was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants.
4.
Robert Ettinger served as a second lieutenant infantryman in the United States Army during World War II.
5.
Robert Ettinger earned two master's degrees from Wayne State University and spent his working career teaching physics and mathematics at both Wayne State University and Highland Park Community college in Michigan.
6.
Robert Ettinger had two children with his first wife, Elaine, David and Shelley.
7.
Robert Ettinger served as legal counsel to the Cryonics Institute and the Immortalist Society.
8.
Robert Ettinger's daughter, who has had no interest in cryonics, is a writer and revolutionary socialist.
9.
Robert Ettinger met his second wife, Mae Junod, in 1962 when she attended one of his adult education courses in basic physics.
10.
Robert Ettinger became active in the Cryonics Society of Michigan and edited and was a production manager for the CSM monthly newsletter, The Outlook.
11.
Robert Ettinger married Junod in 1988 after the death of his first wife.
12.
Robert Ettinger described his time with Junod as one of the most satisfying and tranquil times in his life.
13.
Mae Robert Ettinger suffered a debilitating stroke in 1998 from which she never fully recovered followed by a lethal stroke in 2000, which resulted in her cryopreservation.
14.
Robert Ettinger died on July 23,2011, at the age of 92, in Detroit, Michigan of natural causes, and was cryopreserved with the hope of future revival.
15.
Robert Ettinger waited expectantly for prominent scientists or physicians to come to the same conclusion he had, and to take a position of public advocacy.
16.
Robert Ettinger was 42 years old and said he was increasingly aware of his own mortality.
17.
In what has been characterized as an historically important mid-life crisis, Robert Ettinger summarized the idea of cryonics in a few pages, with the emphasis on life insurance, and sent this to approximately 200 people whom he selected from Who's Who in America.
18.
Robert Ettinger correctly saw that people, even the intellectually, financially and socially distinguished, would have to be educated into understanding his belief that dying is usually gradual and could be a reversible process, and that freezing damage is so limited that its reversibility demands relatively little in future progress.
19.
In 1962, Robert Ettinger privately published a preliminary version of The Prospect of Immortality, in which he said that future technological advances could be used to bring people back to life.
20.
Robert Ettinger became an "overnight" media celebrity, discussed in The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, Paris Match, Der Spiegel, Christian Century, and dozens of other periodicals.
21.
Robert Ettinger appeared on television with David Frost, Johnny Carson, Steve Allen, and others.
22.
Robert Ettinger spoke on radio programs coast-to-coast to promote the idea of human cryopreservation.