author
R. C. W. (Robert C. W.) Ettinger
1918–2011
Best known as the "father of cryonics," this American teacher and writer helped turn a speculative idea about preserving the dead for future revival into a lasting movement. His work sat at the crossroads of science, futurism, and very big questions about life and death.
1 Audiobook
The penultimate trump
by R. C. W. (Robert C. W.) Ettinger
About the author
Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1918, he served in World War II and was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge, later receiving a Purple Heart. He went on to earn degrees at Wayne State University and spent much of his career teaching physics and mathematics in the Detroit area.
He became widely known after publishing The Prospect of Immortality in 1962, the book that made the case for cryonics and brought the idea to a broad audience. Because of that influence, he is often described as the father of cryonics. He later founded the Cryonics Institute and the related Immortalist Society, helping build an organized movement around the hope that future medicine might repair and revive preserved patients.
He also wrote fiction and other nonfiction, including The Man from Tomorrow and Man into Superman. He died in 2011 at age 92, and according to the accounts published by the Cryonics Institute and reference sources, his body was cryonically preserved in keeping with the ideas he had championed for decades.