Yet another thread that would be improved by ‘Need answer fast!’ in the title, but alas for the sake of accuracy it will be neglected.
Anyway it is not unknown for some people these days to have their body (or just their head) frozen in the hope that with the assumed advanced technology of future generations they may be revived.
My question is that assuming a lack of funds but a ‘can do’ attitude where would be the best place on Earth to go to naturally freeze yourself to death in the hope of being found and revived later?
Ease of access and possibly of being found at some future point while being safely frozen for a lengthy period of time need to be taken into consideration.
Any ideas?
I was originally going to post this in General Questions but I doubt there’s a real factual answer, if incorrect I most humbly apologise.
I know someone who climbed to the top of a mountain in NH in mid-winter, drank some alcohol as a depressant, and lay down to die. Friends retrieved his body two days later and it was pretty much frozen, although the weather could have thawed him pretty quickly if we hit a warm spell.
I really don’t think you could do any better than the South Pole. It’s certainly cold enough – even the record high is something like 10 degrees Fahrenheit. And because of the whole “because it’s there” factor, you’re sure to get the occasional visitors dogsledding or hiking or skiing through every decade or so. The North Pole, by dint of being at sea level, is a bit too warm (occasionally hits 32 degrees in high summer).
One other possibility is the Russian research station at Vostok – even colder than the South Pole (because it’s higher up) and it’s an 800 mile shorter hike. And provided you bring a case or two of vodka, they might be more inclined to thaw you out when the time comes.
One problem with natural freezing is that it isn’t fast enough, even at the South Pole (or Vostok) in the winter; ice crystals will form inside your cells and rupture them; I doubt even advanced future medical technology would be able to reconstitute brain slush (sort of like recovering data from a shredded hard drive). You can however avoid this if you very quickly freeze your head/brain and then have it stored in the aforementioned locations. The question is, can even liquid helium cool down your brain fast enough to avoid damaging ice crystals (the outside will freeze instantly, but the interior will freeze more slowly, even worse if it is your whole head)?
A much more serious problem at the North Pole is that the ice moves fast, see this map for an example of how much it moves in just a few months (note the green track, which went all the way from near the North Pole to outside the Arctic Ocean in about half a year; most of the ice only lasts a few years, if that); and of course, the North Pole may become ice-free in a few years to a decade or so; the ice in central Antarctica on the other hand will likely persist, even if parts of the edges melt or collapse. Also, another candidate would be the middle of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
It isn’t really that accessible though, and if you went there on a trip people would quickly notice you missing and try to find you…spoilsports…
Or you might end up like The Thing and not be located for a very long time. I wouldn’t fancy being brought back into a world too far down the timeline, though that could be fun, they might give a lot of leeway regarding the crazy primitives eccentricities…
Oh well, I didn’t know that, doesn’t sound like unnatural freezing is much more effective either though.
I wonder if you could thread your brain with tubes beforehand to bring the liquid helium closer to the part to be frozen. Sounds gruesome, but I’ll bet if you were careful, you could install a fairly dense tubing matrix in the head without causing significant damage. The tubes can be quite a small diameter; sufficiently cold liquid helium is superfluid, so it will flow through the tubing quite readily.
Considering how small and thin the tubing would have to be, what could it be made of so that the liquid helium doesn’t shatter it, destroying the brain?
I’m sure any of several metals would work. I’m not sure if anything stays very flexible at that temperature, but if it’s thin enough it shouldn’t be a problem. Gold might actually be a decent choice; the actual material needed should be fairly small (on the order of a few grams). The inner part could be filled with a removable stiffening wire if you needed more insertion strength.
