Abstract

About 25 years ago, when I became acquainted with the name Gustav Mie, I was unable to find an entry for him in such major encyclopedias as the Britannica or even in several listings of famous scientists [ T. I. Williams, A Biographical Sketch of Scientists ( Wiley, New York, 1967); J. Turkevich and L. Turkevich, Prominent Scientists of Continental Europe ( Elsevier, New York, 1968)]. This puzzled me indeed when I considered that Mie's 1908 paper and the terms Mie scattering and Mie effect were and continue to be copiously cited in the literature on particle light scattering. One can find few issues of Applied Optics, the Journal of Aerosol Science, Aerosol Science and Technology, and many related publications that do not mention Mie. Yet he is a shadowy figure, almost a disembodied three-letter name without much real existence. Within this biographical note, I try to put some flesh and bones on that apparently ghostly scientist.

© 1991 Optical Society of America

Founding fathers of light scattering and surface-enhanced Raman scattering

Milton Kerker
Appl. Opt. 30(33) 4699-4705 (1991)

Mie theory model of the corona

James A. Lock and Leiming Yang
Appl. Opt. 30(24) 3408-3414 (1991)

Rainbows: Mie computations and the Airy approximation

Ru T. Wang and H. C. van de Hulst
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Emmett Leith: a personal perspective

H. John Caulfield
Appl. Opt. 47(4) A119-A122 (2008)

Ludvig Lorenz and nineteenth century optical theory: the work of a great Danish scientist

Helge Kragh
Appl. Opt. 30(33) 4688-4695 (1991)