Gustav Mie was a professor of physics with a strong background in mathematics. After moving to the University of Greifswald in North-Eastern Germany he became acquainted with colloids, and one of his PhD students investigated the scattering and attenuation of light by gold colloids experimentally. Mie used his previously acquired knowledge of the Maxwell equations and solutions of very similar problems in the literature to concisely treat the theoretical problem of scattering and absorption of light by a small absorbing sphere. He also presented many numerical examples which completely explained all the effects that had been observed until then. Since all calculations were done by hand, Mie had to limit his theoretical results to three terms in infinite expansions, thus he only could treat particles smaller than 200 nm at visible wavelengths. Mie's paper had remained hardly noticed for the next 50 years, most likely because of the lack of computers. It experienced a revival later and up to now it has been referenced more than 4000 times, owing to the widespread use of Mie's approach in sciences such as astronomy, meteorology, fluid dynamics and many others.

Gustav Mie did not consider his work on scattering of light by small particles as very important, since he just tried to explain the effects which his students had observed. He concentrated on hot topics in theoretic physics, e.g., the theory of matter. He wrote several textbooks, e.g., on relativity, gravitation theory, and electromagnetism, and all of them had run into several editions.