Definition
Lord Rayleigh, specifically John William Strutt (1842-1919), was a British physicist celebrated for his work in acoustics and optics. His key achievement was the discovery of argon, a noble gas, earning him the Nobel Prize in 1904. He is also renowned for explaining Rayleigh scattering, the phenomenon responsible for the blue color of the sky. Rayleigh was a towering figure in 19th-century science. He was like the science 'boss' of his time.