Coverage in the North County Times and New Book Idea

8:36 AM, April 11, 2007

Ruth Marvin Webster wrote an article about Ibn al-Haytham: First Scientist for the North County Times, a newspaper serving San Diego and Riverside Counties. The article ran on Sunday. Seeing it on the right-hand side of page F-5 was like finding my own Easter basket, packed with nice things.

You can read the story here: The Scientific Method: Escondido author brings attention to medieval Muslim scientist.

I met Ruth last Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at a Starbucks in Escondido. Boundlessly curious, she asked a number of challenging questions about Ibn al-Haytham and the history of science. I welcomed the opportunity to extol the genius of the eleventh century Muslim scholar. She was intrigued by the particulars of his life—the reported bouts of insanity, his trip to Egypt, and the years he spent under house arrest in Cairo.

Eventually the conversation turned to me and my career. Where did I go to school? How did I come to write books? Why young adult books? Where did I get the idea for this one? It was almost 9:00 p.m. by the time we finished. I love to talk about myself, but even I was exhausted.

The interview complete, Ruth took out her camera and started taking pictures. As she worked, I thought about Ibn al-Haytham; his description of image projection using an aperture and a darkened space (the camera obscura) laid the foundation for the development of photography.

My reverie was interrupted by shouts from the barista.

“Ma’am,” she called to Ruth, “flash photography is not allowed in here.” Ruth checked the screen of her digital camera. She hadn’t gotten the exact shot she wanted, so she climbed up on a chair and took another. “Ma’am!” screamed the barista. “No photography!”

Ruth sat down and showed me the pictures on the camera’s display. “I thought vertical stripes were supposed to be slenderizing,” I joked.

“Do you think I can take another?” she whispered.

I shrugged. “We can go outside if you want,” I said.

Ruth glanced over her shoulder. “I’m not afraid of her,” she said, backing up and focusing the lens.

The camera flashed. The barista returned. “Ma’am, if you don’t stop taking pictures, I will call security.”

“I wonder what that's all about,” Ruth said as we packed up to leave.

“Maybe Starbucks is having paparazzi problems," I said, noticing the stares of the customers who were trying to figure out if I was some kind of celebrity.

Once outside, Ruth left me with an intriguing thought. “You should write a fictionalized version of Ibn al-Haytham’s life,” she said. “It’s an amazing story, but if you wrote it as a novel, you could fill in details—all the things that you can only speculate about as a biographer. You can just make it up.”

“That’s an interesting idea,” I said.

“But you would have to add a love interest,” she added. “If it really was his son-in-law who copied his manuscript, and he really had a daughter, you would have to describe his wife. Who was she? Where did they meet?”

“Interesting,” I repeated, unsure.

But when I woke up the next morning I had a vision. I saw a woman come into Ibn al-Haytham’s life. As I showered and dressed, I imagined their meeting, a bond forming between them, the bond growing into love.

Ruth emailed me later in the day with a couple of follow-up questions. I answered her queries and thanked her for the suggestion about the novel. I poured out my thoughts about how it might go.

Later we talked later by phone. I asked what she thought of the story. “I liked it,” she said. “I think you should do it.”

So do I.

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