"You never can tell with bees."
– A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh (1926)
– A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh (1926)
The silent threat of radiation is everywhere in James Bond's world. Of course, stolen nuclear warheads are one cause for concern, but the excessively sunny weather is almost as bad, exposing the hero and his lovely traveling companions to an overdose of UV rays. Then, in Moonraker (1979), there is a high-budget mission to outer space, where the radiation hazards include cosmic rays, solar flares, and the turquoise lasers that everyone is shooting.
James Bond is not afraid of all this radiation. Perhaps he is able to take a cool, rational view of it by reminding himself that electromagnetic radiation can refer to various kinds of waves that move at the speed of light, including the rainbow-colored range of visible light we all see...
