Math Aunty

As a small way to celebrate Black History Month, I would like to take the time out to recognize a great Black mathematician!

First up: ME!

But on a more serious note:

J. Ernest Wilkins was a famous black mathematician who entered the University of Chicago at age 13, earning his bachelor’s in Mathematics in 3 and a hald years! When he was 19, he received his doctorate. Although Wilkins was a brilliant mathematician, donned “the Negro genius” by national newspapers, he was more interested in applied mathematics and went back to school for Mechanical Engineering.

Sadly, this genius experienced racism in his career. The American Mathematics Society invited him to one of their conferences in 1947 but because the meeting was held in Georgia, there were no hotels that would extend their hospitality to him. So they arranged to have him stay with an African American family where he could stay during the conference and also eat his meals there. Wilkins rejected that offer.

Wilkins has published almost 100 papers and one of his major achievements was the development of radiation shielding against gama radiation from nuclear sources. He used mathematical models to show how much gamma radiation is absorbed by different materials, something that was previously thought to be incalculable.

J. Ernest Wilkins passed May 1, 2011.