Gustav Mie: the person.

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.