I read this story when I was very young and can't remember the name but it made an impression. A young man finds out that his wife has a terminal illness, so convinces her to be put into some kind of suspended animation. He plans to do the same to himself but first tries to figure out a way to become an important enough person so that there is a higher likelihood of him and his wife being saved in the event of some future tragedy. He's a musician or composer but decides to spend the next few years interviewing and gathering information about important composers, artists, etc of his day--he hopes that by gathering the more subjective, human bits of information he can become valuable to future historians as a source of knowledge that isn't easily found anywhere else.

He ends up waking at certain intervals and describing the world he finds in a similar way. One thing that stood out was that in the far, far, future human's had specialized professionally to such a degree that each group spoke their own language: doctors spoke a language heavily influenced by medical ideas, physicists spoke one influenced by physics etc.

I may have gotten certain details of the story wrong, but to my 8 or 9 year old self, this story was awesome and I'd love any information anyone can provide. Thanks!