In the Walt Disney movie, Sleeping Beauty, a beautiful young woman is poisoned by her evil stepmother—but due to a fairy’s wish, she falls asleep for 100 years. Only her true love’s kiss can awaken her and her kingdom. After approximately 100 years passes, a handsome young prince kisses the young woman. She awakens and lives happily ever after. Has Walt Disney’s fairytale become our reality? Maybe so, if one does research into the science of Cryogenics.
In physics, cryogenics is the study of the production and behavior of materials at very low temperatures.
It is not well defined at what point on the temperature scale refrigeration ends and cryogenics begins. Scientists assume that a gas to be cryogenic if it can be liquefied at above or below -150 degrees Celsius.
Cryogenics offers the elderly and terminally ill the chance to freeze their body in the hopes of coming back in the future. Will a cryogenically frozen corpse ever come back to life? This topic was dealt with in an article published in December, 2016 in Popular Science by Fer Gregory.
Gregory points out that there are a growing number of people, who have been cryogenically frozen after death. These individuals hoped that advances in medical technology would allow them to be immortalized.
Cryogenics works in humans by allowing the body to be packed in ice and injected with various chemicals in an attempt to immortalize their beings.
In July 2013, Molly Donnahue published an article entitled, ‘Frozen in Time: 7 Celebrities Who Are Taking Steps to Live Forever.’ These celebrities have both a lot of money and a pretty large ego to seriously consider cryogenics as a substitute for any end of life plans. Since it is only legal to freeze someone after they have been declared medically dead, there are some pretty tricky logistics involved in being cryogenically frozen. Aside from having your estate settled and making sure there is a team waiting at your deathbed to put you on ice as soon as possible.
Despite all this, there are still plenty of people who are willing to bet hundreds of thousands of dollars that someday science will have progressed far enough to bring them back from the dead. Among this eccentric bunch are some well-known celebrities. Molly Donnahue indicated that Seth MacFarland, Larry King, Simon Cowell, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears are all planning to be cryogenically frozen. Ted Williams has already been cryogenically frozen. The baseball star’s head is waiting for the day “when he will be able to receive a body transplant and be revived-and perhaps get another shot at baseball glory.”
