A University physics professor and leading researcher of the remnants of the big bang, David Wilkinson died Sept. 5 after a 15-year battle with cancer. He was 67.
Wilkinson worked in the physics department for nearly 40 years as a cosmologist before retiring last spring. One of the founding members of "the gravity group," Wilkinson spent the bulk of his career searching for cosmic microwave background radiation — a 13-billion-year-old echo of the big bang — and using his findings to map its spectrum.
"Dave was the ideal of a scientist," fellow physics professor Lyman Page wrote in an e-mail. "He designed beautiful experiments and he was generally years ahead of the competition.
"He really was the father of this whole movement to make more and more accurate measurements of the cosmos and to use the cosmos to go after fundamental physics."
After receiving his B.S.E., M.S.E. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, Wilkinson joined the University physics department in 1963 under the tutelage of Robert Dicke '37, physics professor emeritus.
Wilkinson and Dicke explored the cosmos for background radiation, the initial discovery of which would help shift the big bang away from scientific hypothesis and closer to scientific fact.
Since the big-bang theory was first proposed, physicists had hypothesized that if the universe did begin from a single point, then there should be cosmic leftovers from the event. But it was not until the early 1960s when Dicke and Wilkinson used a radiometer to receive and interpret emitted radiation that these leftovers were found.
This microwave radiation was found throughout the universe, which gave a strong nod to big bang theories, but as it turned out, Dicke and Wilkinson were a few months too late, physics professor Ed Groth '66 said.
Scientists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at Bell Laboratories, working less than an hour away, had been conducting the same experiment. But neither group knew of each others' research.
When word got out that University physicists were hot on their tails, Penzias and Wilson rushed to publish their results, Groth said, and both the annals of scientific history and the 1978 Nobel Prize in physics credit them for the discovery.
In the end, Dicke and Wilkinson had more accurate data, physics professor James Peebles GS '62 said, but Wilkinson was more concerned with science, not accolades.
His curriculum vitae, or lack thereof, demonstrates his humility, Peebles said. Though Wilkinson was a prominent scientist for nearly four decades and won numerous awards, his resume is entirely contained on one side of one sheet of paper — double-spaced.
After the discovery of cosmic radiation, Wilkinson dedicated the bulk of his career to refining the tools he used to measure the radiation and to more specifically map its entire spectrum.
He played a large role in the development of the satellite COBE, the cosmic background explorer, which gave cosmologists a detailed glimpse of the background radiation from outer space and enough precision to calculate fluctuations in the radiation.
Launched in 1989, COBE was able to detect "large scale ripples" in the radiation, which remain from the early universe.
"The fluctuations validate the early formation of matter," Groth said. "Dave was very pleased with getting good results."
The successful research from COBE was followed up in 2001, with the launch of the satellite MAP, the microwave anisotropy probe.
Wilkinson worked very closely on the satellite with Page, who plans to announce the results early next year.
And yet, as progress on cosmology will continue without him, the University scientific community will not be the same.
"In the 33 years I've been here, I have had him to go to for advice," Groth said. "There's a big hole now."
However, perhaps more than his cosmological research, Wilkinson will be most remembered among faculty for his teaching.
Wilkinson has taught, mentored and trained a large fraction of the currently active experimental cosmologists.
"As a mentor, he was the best I've ever seen," Peebles said. "He supported students strongly and had a delightfully wry and positive way of teaching."
"He was the statesman for our field," said Page, a Wilkinson protege.
Wilkinson is survived by his wife Eunice, a son and daughter, three stepchildren and five grandchildren.
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