I've been me(i)med!

I suppose playing a game of virtual tag is friendlier than virtual playground bullying. But still. Grumble grumble grumble. Gripe gripe gripe. I have been tagged by the folks at Detrius. So now I am "it". Here are the rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you. (last part done.)

Sounds straightforward enough, right?

Problem #1: the books I'm currently reading and computer are not in the same room, so the closest five books are a hodgepodge of books--none of which have an obvious "fifth sentence", much less "next three sentences" I could easily post.

2. If I had been asked this a week ago, I was reading Infidel and could've offered you a far more interesting and straightforward three sentences. But no. So now you are stuck with a long-winded post.

The closest book happens to be my Chinese book.

Sentence 6 and 7 read: (there is no third sentence)
Wáng lǎoshī jiāo wǒmen yǔfǎ hé Hànzì. Wǒ hé Pàlánkǎ hái yǒu yíge Zhōngguó lǎoshī.
王老師教我們語法和漢字.我和, etc. etc.

Second closest book to me: Feynman's Lectures on Physics Volume 1.
Problem: no page numbers! So then I turn to section 12-3.
However, for many systems the charges are very much better balanced, in particular for oxygen gas, which is perfectly symmetrical. In this case, although the minus charges and the plus charges are dispersed over the molecule, the distribution is such that the center of the minus charges and the center of the plus charges coincide. A molecule where the centers do not coincide is called a polar molecule, and charge times the separation between centers is called the dipole moment.

Third closest book to me was Edward Tufte's Envisioning Information. P. 123 is the index section, so no sentences.

Fourth closest book to me (they are all equidistant, actually, since they are sitting on bookshelves, so it's a matter of which one juts out the most) is a Peanuts cartoon book. Nary a page number to be seen.

Fifth closest book is another Feynman book, No Ordinary Genius. Aha. Finally, a normal book with normal pagination! (Stage direction: tagged victim eagerly flips through the pages and looks at pg. 123) On p. 123 is an image of a petition letter that Feynman was asked to sign, and below that, a letter Feynman wrote to reject the letter.

I'm sure the next closest book might have normal text (um, actually, no. It looks like it is a Hungarian language book.) , but I think five is more than enough.

So now I get to tag five people. But since I don't know if these will keep reappearing, I'm not going to "tag" anyone. I'll make it a voluntary meme. Thus, the next five people who read this post, if you want to participate, please post your findings in the comments.

And now back to our regular program. . ..