Bond gadgets: From reel to real

James Bond and his clever friends at MI6 have been famed over decades for their cool cars, amazing accessories and marvellous machines of land, sea and air. Here, Matthew Agius explains the Bond gadgets that made it into our lives (and a few we wish had).

For 60 years, James Bond has been wielding an arsenal of amazing apparatus made by the propellerheads at Q Branch.

Bond films are known for offering a glimpse into what’s technologically possible. From nifty reuses of everyday devices to attention-grabbing one-off inventions, here are the gadgets that have gone from reel to real[ity]...

Laser for gold and gland: Goldfinger

“Do you expect me to talk?” “No Mr Bond, I expect you to die!”

In this iconic scene, the villainous Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe) chuckles as he starts to exit the scene while Sean Connery’s Bond watches a red laser creep ominously towards his nether regions, cutting through the slab of gold to which our hero is bound.

The scene was a masterful concoc­ tion of sixties set design and visual effects. Connery was bound to a table, with a prop ‘laser’ gun slid above him. The bright red line was superimposed on the final print during post­-production.

At the time of Goldfinger’s release, laser technology research was taking great strides, with then low-­powered products. Could an international gold smuggler acquire such a weapon in the real world today?

Most definitely. Laser development has grown significantly since Bond foiled Goldfinger’s plan and the technology has broad applications across industry, as Professor David Lancaster from the University of South Australia’s Laser Physics and Photonics Devices Laboratory explains.

“There’s been a lot of breakthroughs in how to generate laser light from elec tricity – things called diode lasers which are in CD players and are used in telecom munications systems and LED torches,” Lancaster says. “LED torches are, really, the same technology that underpins a lot of the laser developments.”

While the pointer laser that entertains your cat is about one milliwatt, modern optical fibre lasers can harness tens of kilowatts of power for precision surgery, including bladeless eye surgery, or use super-focused light beams to kill tumours.

“These fibre lasers are millions of times brighter than what you can effectively buy off the shelf now.”

Lancaster endorses the Bond scene. “These days there are lasers that can burn metal from that sort of distance… a lot of the 3D printers are using lasers.”

Even better: “It turns out they’re very good for cutting and welding human organs, like eyes, for instance – using these lasers to reweld the back of your retina if you’ve got retinal detachment.”

For the full story on 007's spy-fi gadgets – some of which have come true – head below to Cosmos 97 | Energy. Effort. Endeavour