Jesse Ernest Wilkins Jr. (November 27, 1923 – May 1, 2011) was an African American

nuclear scientist Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...

mechanical engineer Mechanical may refer to: Machine * Machine (mechanical), a system of mechanisms that shape the actuator input to achieve a specific application of output forces and movement * Mechanical calculator, a device used to perform the basic operations of ...

and

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

. A

child prodigy A child prodigy is defined in psychology research literature as a person under the age of ten who produces meaningful output in some domain at the level of an adult expert. The term is also applied more broadly to young people who are extraor ...

, he attended the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

at the age of 13, becoming its youngest ever student.Mathematicians of the African Diaspora
J. Ernest Wilkins Jr.
Department of Mathematics, University of Buffalo. Retrieved online May 7, 2011.U.S. Department Of Energy
Black Contributors to Science and Energy Technology (Biographical sketch: Ernest Wilkins)
U.S. Department Of Energy, Office of Public Affairs, U.S.Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1979, pp. 14–15, DOE/OPA-0035(79) His graduation at a young age resulted in him being hailed as "the Negro Genius" in the national media. Wilkins and

Eugene Wigner Eugene Paul "E. P." Wigner ( hu, Wigner Jenő Pál, ; November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who also contributed to mathematical physics. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his con ...

co-developed the Wigner-Wilkins approach for estimating the distribution of neutron energies within nuclear reactors, which is the basis for how all nuclear reactors are designed. Wilkins later went on to become the President of the American Nuclear Society in 1974. Wilkins had a widely varied career, spanning seven decades and including significant contributions to pure and

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathematical s ...

, civil and nuclear engineering, and optics. Wilkins was one of the

African American scientists and technicians on the Manhattan Project African-American scientists and technicians on the Manhattan Project held a small number of positions among the several hundred scientists and technicians involved. Nonetheless, African-American men and women made important contributions to the ...

during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. He also conducted

nuclear physics Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...

research in both academia and industry. He wrote numerous scientific papers, served in various important posts, earned several significant awards and helped recruit minority students into the sciences.University of Chicago
University of Chicago to Commemorate Accomplishments of Mathematics Alumnus J. Ernest Wilkins Jr.
University of Chicago News Office, February 27, 2007, updated July 23, 2007. Retrieved June 9, 2011.Y., M.R., University of Chicago Magazine

University of Chicago, March 2, 2007. Retrieved June 9, 2011. During his life he was often the target of racism.

Education and early career

In 1940, Wilkins completed his AB in mathematics at the University of Chicago. He went on to an MS and PhD in mathematics at the same institution, which he completed in 1941 and 1942. Having initially been unable to secure a research position, Wilkins taught mathematics from 1943 to 1944 at the

Tuskegee Institute Tuskegee University (Tuskegee or TU), formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute, is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was founded on Independence Day in 1881 by the state legislature. The campus was de ...

(now Tuskegee University) in Tuskegee,

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...

Manhattan Project

In 1944 he returned to the University of Chicago where he served first as an associate mathematical physicist and then as a

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

in its Metallurgical Laboratory, as part of the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

. Working under the direction of

Arthur Holly Compton Arthur Holly Compton (September 10, 1892 – March 15, 1962) was an American physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927 for his 1923 discovery of the Compton effect, which demonstrated the particle nature of electromagnetic radia ...

and

Enrico Fermi Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian (later naturalized American) physicist and the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" and ...

, Wilkins researched the extraction of fissionable nuclear materials, but was not told of the research group's ultimate goal until after the

atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

was dropped on

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...

. Wilkins was the co-discoverer or discoverer of a number of phenomena in physics such as the Wilkins effect and the Wigner–Wilkins spectra.Gates, Henry Louis & Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks
African American Lives
Oxford University Press, U.S., 2004, pp. 883–884, . When Wilkins's team was about to be transferred to the

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research and ...

Oak Ridge, Tennessee Oak Ridge is a city in Anderson and Roane counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about west of downtown Knoxville. Oak Ridge's population was 31,402 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Knoxville Metropolitan Area. Oak ...

(known at the time as site "X"), due to the

Jim Crow laws The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...

of the

Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

, Wilkins would have been prevented from working there. When

Edward Teller Edward Teller ( hu, Teller Ede; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb" (see the Teller–Ulam design), although he did not care fo ...

was informed about this, he wrote a letter on September 18, 1944, to

Harold Urey Harold Clayton Urey ( ; April 29, 1893 – January 5, 1981) was an American physical chemist whose pioneering work on isotopes earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934 for the discovery of deuterium. He played a significant role in the d ...

(who was the director of war research at Columbia at the time) of Wilkins's abilities, informing him about the issue caused by local reactions to Wilkins's race, and recommending his services for a new position. As Teller explained: Wilkins then continued to teach mathematics and conduct significant research in neutron absorption with physicist

, including the development of its mathematical models. He would also later help design and develop

nuclear reactor A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nu ...

s for electrical

power generation Electricity generation is the process of generating electric power from sources of primary energy. For utilities in the electric power industry, it is the stage prior to its delivery ( transmission, distribution, etc.) to end users or its stor ...

, becoming part owner of one such company.

Later career

To improve communication between mathematicians and nuclear engineers on a project, Wilkins earned bachelor's (1957) and master's degrees (1960) in mechanical engineering from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

, thus earning five science degrees during his life. It also qualified him to design and build nuclear facilities. In 1970 Wilkins went on to serve

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and accredited by the Middle States Commissi ...

as its distinguished professor of applied mathematical physics and also to help found the university's PhD program in mathematics. During his tenure at Howard he undertook a sabbatical position as a visiting scientist at

Argonne National Laboratory Argonne National Laboratory is a science and engineering research United States Department of Energy National Labs, national laboratory operated by University of Chicago, UChicago Argonne LLC for the United States Department of Energy. The facil ...

from 1976 to 1977. From 1974 to 1975 Wilkins served as president of the

American Nuclear Society The American Nuclear Society (ANS) is an international, not-for-profit organization of scientists, engineers, and industry professionals that promote the field of nuclear engineering and related disciplines. ANS is composed of three communities ...

and in 1976 became the second African American to be elected to the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

.Koppes, Steve
University of Chicago to Commemorate Accomplishments of Mathematics Alumnus J. Ernest Wilkins Jr.
(media release), News Office, University of Chicago, February 27, 2007. From 1990 Wilkins lived and worked in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, as a

distinguished professor Distinguished Professor is an academic title given to some top tenured professors in a university, school, or department. Some distinguished professors may have endowed chairs. In the United States Often specific to one institution, titles such ...

of applied mathematics and

mathematical physics Mathematical physics refers to the development of mathematics, mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The ''Journal of Mathematical Physics'' defines the field as "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and t ...

Clark Atlanta University Clark Atlanta University (CAU or Clark Atlanta) is a private, Methodist, historically black research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Clark Atlanta is the first Historically Black College or University (HBCU) in the Southern United States. Found ...

, and retired again for his last time in 2003. Throughout his years of research Wilkins published more than 100 papers on a variety of subjects, including

differential geometry Differential geometry is a mathematical discipline that studies the geometry of smooth shapes and smooth spaces, otherwise known as smooth manifolds. It uses the techniques of differential calculus, integral calculus, linear algebra and multili ...

linear differential equation In mathematics, a linear differential equation is a differential equation that is defined by a linear polynomial in the unknown function and its derivatives, that is an equation of the form :a_0(x)y + a_1(x)y' + a_2(x)y'' \cdots + a_n(x)y^ = b( ...

integrals In mathematics, an integral assigns numbers to functions in a way that describes displacement, area, volume, and other concepts that arise by combining infinitesimal data. The process of finding integrals is called integration. Along with di ...

nuclear engineering Nuclear engineering is the branch of engineering concerned with the application of breaking down atomic nuclei ( fission) or of combining atomic nuclei (fusion), or with the application of other sub-atomic processes based on the principles of n ...

gamma radiation A gamma ray, also known as gamma radiation (symbol γ or \gamma), is a penetrating form of electromagnetic radiation arising from the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei. It consists of the shortest wavelength electromagnetic waves, typically s ...

shielding and

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultraviole ...

, garnering numerous professional and scientific awards along the way.

Family

Wilkins had two children with his first wife Gloria Louise Steward (d.1980) whom he married in June 1947, married Maxine G. Malone in 1984. He was married a third time to Vera Wood Anderson in Chicago in September 2003. He had a daughter, Sharon, and a son, J. Ernest III, during his first marriage. His father, J. Ernest Wilkins Sr., served as

US Assistant Secretary of Labor The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for the administration of federal laws governing occupational safety and health, wage and hour standards, unemploym ...

during the

Eisenhower administration Dwight D. Eisenhower's tenure as the 34th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1953, and ended on January 20, 1961. Eisenhower, a Republican from Kansas, took office following a landslide victory ov ...

.Zerbonia, Ralph G. (contrib. by Alic, Margaret) (2005
Contemporary Black Biography
Gale Research Inc, 2005, Vol. 49 (Original from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

), Digitized September 17, 2008, . Wilkins is the uncle of two notable attorneys: David B. Wilkins, a professor at the

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

, and

Timothy A. Wilkins Timothy Wilkins is an American lawyer and chair of the board of directors of New York Public Radio. He is a partner at the international law firm of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and was the firm’s first Black partner in the United States offic ...

, a partner with

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP (informally Freshfields, or FBD) is an international law firm headquartered in London, and a member of the Magic Circle. The firm has 28 offices in 17 jurisdictions across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North ...

. In 2010 a niece of Wilkins, Carolyn Marie Wilkins, Professor of Music at the

Berklee College of Music Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level cours ...

in Boston, wrote of Wilkins' father and her family more generally in her biography ''Damn Near White: An African American Family's Rise from Slavery to Bittersweet Success''.Wilkins, Carolyn Marie
Damn Near White: An African American Family's Rise from Slavery to Bittersweet Success
University of Missouri Press, 2010, . Wilkins died on May 1, 2011, in Fountain Hills, Arizona. He was buried at the National Memorial Cemetery,

Cave Creek, Arizona Cave Creek is a town in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States. It is part of the Phoenix metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the population of the town was 4,892. History Cave Creek was settled in 1870 by soldiers on horseback from Fo ...

, on May 5.

Tributes and honors

* The Wilkins effect, plus the Wigner–Wilkins and Wilkins spectra, discovered during the 1940s, are named or co-named after him; * In March 2007 Wilkins was honored by his alma mater, the

, in a special ceremony that included the dedication of his portrait and a plaque in the Eckhart Hall Tea Room of its Physical Sciences Division; * U.S. Army Outstanding Civilian Service Medal, 1980; * NAM, Honorary Life Member, Lifetime Achievement Award, 1994; * QEM Network, Giant in Science Award, 1994; * Department of Energy, Special Recognition Award, 1996; * University of Chicago Alumni Association, Professional Achievement Citation, 1997.

Memberships

Some of Wilkins's memberships included: *

Kappa Alpha Psi Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. () is a historically African American fraternity. Since the fraternity's founding on January 5, 1911 at Indiana University Bloomington, the fraternity has never restricted membership on the basis of color, creed ...

fraternity 1938Alic, Margaret
J. Ernest Wilkins Jr.
Gale Contemporary Black Biography, 2006. Retrieved from Answers.com *

, Member, elected in 1976; *

American Society of Mechanical Engineers The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is an American professional association that, in its own words, "promotes the art, science, and practice of multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences around the globe" via "continuing ...

; *

, Board of Directors, 1967–77, President, 1974–75; * National Research Council of the United States, Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, Chairman, 1990–94; *

Oak Ridge Associated Universities Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) is a consortium of American universities headquartered in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, with offices in Arlington, Virginia, Arvada, Colorado, Belcamp, Maryland, Cincinnati, Ohio and staff at other locations acro ...

, council, 1990; * U.S. Army Science Board, chairman, 1970–2001.

Selected writings and other works

As listed i
this work
;Texts * with Robert L. Hellens and Paul E. Zweifel, "Status of Experimental and Theoretical Information on Neutron Slowing-Down Distributions in Hydrogenous Media," in ''Proceedings of the International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy'', United Nations, 1956; * "The Landau Constants," in ''Progress in Approximation Theory'', Nevai, Paul and Allan Pinkus, eds., Academic Press, 1991; * with E. P. Wigner
Effect of the Temperature of the Moderator on the Velocity Distribution of Neutrons With Numerical Calculations for H as a Moderator
i
''The Collected Works of Eugene Paul Wigner''
Springer-Verlag, 1992; * "Mean Number of Real Zeroes of a Random Trigonometric Polynomial. II," in ''Topics in Polynomials of One or Several Variables and Their Applications'', World Scientific Publishing, 1993. ;Periodicals * with Herbert Goldstein and L. Volume Spencer
Systematic Calculations of Gamma-Ray Penetration
''Physical Review'', 1953; * "The Silverman Necessary Condition for Multiple Integrals in the Calculus of Variations", ''Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society'', 1974; * "A Variational Problem in Hilbert Space, " ''Applied Mathematics and Optimization'', 1975–76; * with Keshav N. Srivastava, "Minimum Critical Mass Nuclear Reactors, Part I and Part II", ''Nuclear Science and Engineering'', 1982; * with J. N. Kibe, "Apodization for Maximum Central Irradiance and Specified Large Rayleigh Limit of Resolution II ", ''Journal of the Optical Society of America A, Optics and Image Science'', 1984; * "A Modulus of Continuity for a Class of Quasismooth Functions", ''Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society'', 1985; * "An Asymptotic Expansion for the Expected Number of Real Zeros of a Random Polynomial", ''Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society'', 1988; * "An Integral Inequality", ''Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society'', 1991; * with Shantay A. Souter "Mean Number of Real Zeros of a Random Trigonometric Polynomial. III", ''Journal of Applied Mathematics and Stochastic Analysis'', 1995; * "The Expected Value of the Number of Real Zeros of a Random Sum of Legendre Polynomials", ''Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society'', 1997; * "Mean Number of Real Zeros of a Random Trigonometric Polynomial IV", ''Journal of Applied Mathematics and Stochastic Analysis'', 1997; * "Mean Number of Real Zeros of a Random Hyperbolic Polynomial", ''International Journal of Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences'', 2000. ;Other work * "Optimization of Extended Surfaces for Heat Transfer", video recording, ''American Mathematical Society'', 1994. ;Biographies

MAA Online website, November 19, 2003, originally published in the

National Association of Mathematicians The National Association of Mathematicians is a professional association for mathematicians in the US, especially African Americans and other minorities. It was founded in 1969.

''NAM Newsletter'', Fall Issue, 1994;
J. Ernest Wilkins Jr.
''Mathematicians of the African Diaspora'',

State University of New York at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...

, November 19, 2003; * O'Connor, J.J. & Robertson, E. F.
Jesse Ernest Wilkins Jr.

MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive is a website maintained by John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson and hosted by the University of St Andrews in Scotland. It contains detailed biographies on many historical and contemporary mathemati ...

, April 2002; * Agwu, Nkechi & Nkwanta, Asamoah,
African Americans in Mathematics: DIMACS Workshop, June 26–28, 1996
'' ed. by Nathaniel Dean, NSF Science and Technology Center in Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, AMS Bookstore, 1997, ; * Agwu, Nkechi & Nkwanta, Asamoah, "Dr. J Ernest Wilkins Jr.: The Man and His Works: Mathematician, Physicist and Engineer", Nathaniel Dean, ed., ''African Americans in Mathematics'', (Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society, 1997), pp. 195–205; * "J. Ernest Wilkins Jr.", ''Notable Scientists from 1900 to the Present'', Gale, 2001. * Kessler, James H., Kidd, J. S., Kidd, Renée A. & Morin, Katherine A.,
Distinguished African American Scientists of the 20th Century
', Oryx Press, 1996, pp. 331–334, . * Tubbs, Vincent. "Adjustment of a Genius". ''

Ebony Magazine ''Ebony'' is a monthly magazine that focuses on news, culture, and entertainment. Its target audience is the African-American community, and its coverage includes the lifestyles and accomplishments of influential black people, fashion, beauty, an ...

'', February 1958, pp. 60–67. * Newell, V.K., editor. '' Black Mathematicians and Their Works'', 1980.

References

External links

* * Part of his early life is retold in the radio drama
Boy With A Dream
, a presentation from ''

Destination Freedom ''Destination Freedom'' was a weekly radio program produced by WMAQ in Chicago from 1948 to 1950 that presented biographical histories of prominent African-Americans such as George Washington Carver, Satchel Paige, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tu ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilkins, J. Ernest Jr 1923 births 2011 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians African-American engineers African-American mathematicians American Methodists Clark Atlanta University faculty University of Chicago alumni Manhattan Project people American nuclear physicists United States Army Science Board people American mechanical engineers Polytechnic Institute of New York University alumni Mathematicians from Illinois Tuskegee University faculty Howard University faculty African-American physicists