Robert Chester Wilson Ettinger (; December 4, 1918 – July 23, 2011) was an American academic, known as "the father of cryonics" because of the impact of his 1962 book The Prospect of Immortality.
Ettinger founded the Cryonics Institute and the related Immortalist Society and until 2003 served as the groups' president. His body has been cryopreserved, like the bodies of his first and second wives, and his mother.
Personal background
Ettinger was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. Raised Jewish, he later attended Protestant Unitarian church services before becoming an atheist. He served as a second lieutenant infantryman in the United States Army during World War II. Severely wounded in battle in Germany, he received the Purple Heart He earned two master's degrees from Wayne State University (one in physics, one in mathematics) and spent his working career teaching physics and mathematics at both Wayne State University and Highland Park Community college in Michigan.
Roots of cryonics in science fiction
Ettinger grew up reading Hugo Gernsback's Amazing Stories. In what has been characterized as an historically important mid-life crisis, under the pseudonym Nathan Duhring. Cooper's book contained the same argument as did Ettinger's, but it lacked both scientific and technical rigor and was not of publication quality.
Bibliography
Short stories
- "The Penultimate Trump" (March 1948)
- Available online
Books
- The Prospect of Immortality (1962, 1964 and later editions)
- Available online
- Man Into Superman (1972 and later editions)
- Available online
- Youniverse: Toward a Self-Centered Philosophy of Immortalism and Cryonics (2009)