#16438: — 02/19  at  03:34 PM
From A Conspiracy So Immense, by David M Oshinsky (about Joe McCarthy):

This mindless probing allowed Kenyon to restate her strong anti-Communist beliefs.

I'm not actually reading this, but I moved recently, and did a rather random unpacking job. This is the first book my eye fell on here in my office.

#16441: Ken Cope — 02/19  at  03:53 PM
Oh dear. I hope that people aren't reading a version of Stardust without the illustrations by Charles Vess that lit up the original 4 part edition from Vertigo.

If we're going to use the book we've been carting around with us and left by the nightstand, then the sentence that's a bit of a punchline for this crowd comes from Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon:

"Of particular interest has been the subject of just how much information can be extracted from seemingly random data."

#16443: — 02/19  at  04:05 PM
"The HOMO of the allyl cation (phi 1) is the one which has the coefficient on the central atom larger than those at the other two."

from page 124 of "Frontier Orbitals and Chemical Reactions" By Ian Fleming (no not that one). Page 123 didn't have 5 sentences on it, so I counted to the fifth sentence from the start of page 123.

Happily I am revising for a job interview, so the book to hand was an intelligent one when I nipped in here for a quick skive. Had it been any other time the sentence might well have read "So I thought I'd write to you guys at Penthouse and let you know what happened.". I do wish my wife would stop leaving those around!

#16444: — 02/19  at  04:21 PM
From the first page of Ch. 5 in Microwave Horns and Feeds, "Numerical analysis of small axisymmetric feeds":

"For instance, in prime-focus reflectors the feed blocks the reflector aperture and its size must be small."

I think I'm contractually obligated to point out that this ought to be intuitively obvious to the casual observer.

#16447: Rana — 02/19  at  05:23 PM
Well, the first time I did this, I got a page with a big picture and only three "sentences" (the caption). Now I am sitting an equal distance between a dictionary and a book on yoga.

For your amusement and edification:

"Press your elbows into the floor."

-----B.K.S. Iyengar, Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health.

and

"Nearby, on December 2, 1805, Napoleon decisively defeated the Russian and Austrian armies of Czar Alexander I and Emperor Francis II."

-----From the definition for Austerlitz, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd edition.

(I decided to mix this up by counting only complete sentences, ecluding any commands to "See X.")

Why yes, I do like to overcomplicate things. Why do you ask?

#16448: — 02/19  at  05:41 PM
Hmm - the nearest book is the prepublication draft of Paul Houston's _Chemical Kinetics and Reaction Dynamics_. Its page are not numbered sequentially throughout, but only within each chapter, so there is no page 123. As a substitute, I turn to page 1-23 (i.e. page 23 of chapter 1) and find sentence 5 to be pretty dull:

"The flux of molecules is defined as the number of molecules crossing a unit area per unit time."

If instead I go for the nearest book that actually has a page 123, that turns out to be Sam Tanenhaus' biography of Whittaker Chambers. That gives me :

"Reiss had broken with the regime and circulated a letter in which he called Stalin a traitor to the revolution."

The immediately preceding sentence is much more striking:

"In September police found Ignace Reiss, the NKVD rezident in Switzerland, sprawled on a a highway outside Lausanne, his well-dressed corpse perforated with bullet holes."

#16449: Mrs Tilton — 02/19  at  05:50 PM
"Und mir erzählte noch vor einigen Tagen ein Arzt der Heil- und Pflegeanstalt von einer verheirateten Frau, die sich mit einem lebendigen Aal befriedigen wollte."

-- Günter Grass, Die Blechtrommel. (The narrator relates a report he has heard describing some marine-biology fieldwork.)

#16450: — 02/19  at  05:54 PM
Reaching out blindly to the bookcase...

"You couldn't even find out which ones you couldn't get, because the list of proscribed books was itself a secret"

[author and title proscribed]

#16452: anthony — 02/19  at  07:10 PM
Le Cordon Bleu at Home Cotes De Porc Flamande

Peel, rinse and slice the potatoes 3mm (1/8 inch thick).

#16457: — 02/19  at  07:50 PM
James P. Hogan, "Voyage from Yesteryear" reads (I kid you not): "Now, tell us where this stuff came from" Sentence six is "I want the truth". Jokes about mutant squid doing Jack Nicholson impersonations sprang to mind when I read that.

#16458: Wayne — 02/19  at  08:34 PM
People, it's so much more fun when you don't identify what you're reading from:

"That's the case with everyone," Wyzer said.

#16462: — 02/19  at  09:35 PM
The nearest book to me is the National Geographic Road Atlas. Page 123 has a map of Alberta, but no complete sentences.

Trackback: Who says scientists read only science books? Tracked on: Rhosgobel: Radagast's Home (72.9.234.70) at 2005 02 19 21:59:59
I'm on my Linux box, and the closest book is actually a graphic novel: Cardcaptor Sakura: Master of the Clow, Volume 3. "He's very kind to her." And that was the last sentence on the page, too. Of course, a lot of the page is taken up by ar...

#16467: — 02/19  at  11:42 PM
"The seeds are ripe when they fall out of the seedheads easily if disturbed." <b>The Homebrewer's Garden</b

#16471: — 02/20  at  04:55 AM
Mrs. Tilton, which part of The Tin Drum is that, exactly? I don't speak German, so unfortunately I had to rely on the book's English translations.

#16473: — 02/20  at  05:15 AM
"They stared up."
From the story "Here There be Tygers", by Ray Bradbury, in "R is for Rocket", published by Pan sometimes in the 60s. (It's missing the page w. copyright information etc.)

#16474: — 02/20  at  05:34 AM
The crust is pushed together along reverse faults.
Earth Story: The Forces That Have Shaped Our Planet, Simon Lamb and David Sington, BBC Worldwide, ISBN 0-563-48707-0.

(This is an indirect means of making a book recommendation, I think. This one isn't for specialists, but is a good introductory Earth Sciences text for high-school students and lay readers. The series of TV programmes which it accompanies is great, too - I wish it were obtainable on DVD. A pity that Chapter 7 wasn't chosen; that's about palaeontology and evolution.

#16475: Mrs Tilton — 02/20  at  06:07 AM
Alon,

it's in chapter 12 of Book I, which I imagine is called something like 'Good Friday Fare' in English. It's a paragraph about eels you are looking for, and it begins something like, 'Matzerath thought it right that eels should be made to writhe in salt.'

#16477: — 02/20  at  06:50 AM
Thanks, Mrs. Tilton. In my version it's, "Matzerath thought it was only fair to let the eels wriggle in salt," and your fifth sentence is "And a few days ago one of the doctors here in the hospital told me abotu a married woman who tried to to take her pleasure with a live eel."

Trackback: What are You Reading Meme Tracked on: Provocative Planet (64.9.205.106) at 2005 02 20 10:39:25
From Pharyngula: Pharyngula::We are all lemmings, we bloggers: Grab the nearest book. Open the book to page 123. Find the fifth sentence. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions. Don't search around and look...

#16492: — 02/20  at  12:40 PM
first book had one sentence on page 123. second book is (i am sorry to say) the book of mormon: "And now I, Jacob, spake many more things unto the people of Nephi, warning them against fornication and lasciviousness and every kind of sin, telling them the awful consequences of them." please don't ask why i am reading the book of mormon.

#16497: teep — 02/20  at  01:15 PM
I did this one on my LJ... but since it was mentioned above, I thought I'd help out...

The Holy Bible, KJV:

Deuteronomy 9:5 Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Full disclosure: Atheist. Book was on top of stack to be handy in case I needed to look up biblical references for Moby Dick. Yes, really.

Second book in stack: 絶対儷奴, vol. 26
p. 123, sentence 5: 待って兄さん！イヤだーっ

#16498: — 02/20  at  01:48 PM
From Aftermath by Susan J. Brison

"The wonder is that we've managed, once again, to winter through and that our hearts, in spite of everything, survive"

#16499: — 02/20  at  03:07 PM
coturnix
Thanks for the link. I somehow missed the Keck Center despite much exploration of NCSU here lately (hope that doesn't say something about my research capabilities, yikes!). Looks like they have some interesting stuff going on there now, and I do intend to scam my way into their vet program anyway. I can't help but laugh when I hear the derisive, if humorous, moniker given to NCSU of "Moo-U," usually by those who are averse to biology.

I'm leaning towards avian evolution, esp. sexual selection and dimorphism, though avian communication and social behavior are interesting too. But at this point, I'd be pleased with any school that encourages undergrad research. Or more to the point, a school that at least gives the kind of hard-ass exams that PZ described earlier. Anything less would be a disservice to students, and an insult, really (esp. to those of us nontraditionals who are paying tuition out of our own pocket).

-a dissatisfied community college student.

#16500: — 02/20  at  05:22 PM
"The balance sheet is clearly a pro-Israel strategy, amounting to complicity in human rights atrocities."

Inflammatory, hey?