Radiation Radiates

I recently finished reading The Orphan Master’s Son, a (Pulitzer-winning, apparently) novel set in 2000’s-era North Korea. In one plot point, Kim Jong Il has agents steal a Japanese telescope designed to measure the cosmic microwave background radiation, under the mistaken impression that it will help him find uranium. The novel plays it for (horrified) laughs, but I’ve seen this kind of misunderstanding crop up in the real world too. Sure, most people would realize that a telescope probably won’t help you find something buried under a mountain of rock. But there’s a deeper misunderstanding here. Ask yourself: what does “radiation” mean? We talk about radioactive elements like uranium releasing radiation. We talk about electromagnetic radiation, including everything from gamma rays to visible light to the 5G of your cell phone. We talk about cosmic radiation coming in from space, and about the cosmic background radiation that originated in the early universe. For someone who doesn’t…