Jesse Ernest Wilkins, Jr. is often described as one of America’s most important contemporary mathematicians. When he finished his Ph.D. at 19, he was hailed by the national press as a “negro genius.”
Wilkins (1923-2011) was a prominent African American mathematician and physicist who worked at the University of Chicago Met Lab during the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project was the research and development mission during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons.
Wilkins was a math prodigy. He entered the University of Chicago in 1936, and within six years he obtained three degrees in mathematics (BA in 1940, MS in 1941, and Ph.D. in 1942).
After graduation, Wilkins taught mathematics at the Tuskegee Institute before joining the University of Chicago Met Lab in 1944 at age 21 and soon began working with the top physicists of the time on what was perhaps the most consequential physics research project of the century. Working in collaboration with Arthur Compton and Enrico Fermi, Wilkins researched methods for producing fissionable nuclear materials, focusing on plutonium. Compton was a previous Nobel Prize winner in physics and Fermi was the creator of the world’s first nuclear reactor.
Like many scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, Wilkins was interested in the potential peaceful applications of atomic energy. In 1945 Wilkins, along with seventy other Manhattan Project scientists working at the Met Lab, signed a petition to President Truman.
The petition argued for restraint in the use of atomic bombs:
“The war has to be brought speedily to a successful conclusion and attacks by atomic bombs may very well be an effective method of warfare. We feel, however, that such attacks on Japan could not be justified, at least not until the terms which will be imposed after the war on Japan were made public in detail, and Japan were given an opportunity to surrender.”
As he worked on the Manhattan Project, Wilkens’ contributions to nuclear reactor physics included discovering three scientific phenomena–named the Wilkins effect, the Wigner-Wilkins spectra, and the Wilkins spectra. From 1950 to 1960, he worked at the Nuclear Development Corporation of America (NDA). Remarkably, he continued his education at New York University, obtaining a BA in mechanical engineering in 1957 and an MA in the same field in 1960.
In 1970, Wilkins became the Distinguished Professor of Applied Mathematical Physics at Howard University and founded the university’s doctoral program in mathematics.
Wilkins had a long and distinguished career in nuclear physics, including serving as president of the American Nuclear Society from 1974-1975. The American Nuclear Society (ANS) is the premier professional society serving the nuclear industry, with approximately 11,000 scientists, engineers, educators, students, and other associate members.
Wilkens received many awards during his 61-year career; however, an honor from his first alma mater might stand out. Room 209, aka the “Tea Room,” in Eckhart Hall at the University of Chicago is a place of mathematics department gatherings, historically presided over by a portrait of the department’s founding chairperson. However, in 2007, a picture of J. Ernest Wilkens, Jr. was prominently added to the wall.