I've taken many graduate level physics courses and have never ever heard this stated.
In fact, the only way RP would have been taught this in a physics class is if he was attending course in Aristotelian physics, many, many centuries ago.
(6) Or did Ron Paul sleep though that part of his history class where the sacking of Iona was explained?
Do you really think a handful of monks on the the tiny Isle of Iona is a credible analogue for the 21st Century American Superpower?
You are suffering from a nasty case of psdueo-intellectualism.
OK.. OK..
Perhaps I should have specified that Mr. Paul’s ignorance of vacuums is of an “elementary” nature. Please see the experiment described at this website of the Physics Department of the University of Virginia:
http://phun.physics.virginia.edu/demos/drum.html
It seems so strange to me that in all of your graduate courses in Physics, you never encountered the “Ideal Gas Law”. This law explains why the vacuum created in the experiment above was crushed,, why jet engines work, why refrigerators work, why rockets work, why internal combustion engines work etc etc. Forgive the pun, but if you don’t know what happens when gases of different pressures meet, than your knowledge of Physics contains a “vacuum”.
The sacking of Iona was a historical example selected to show that the “power of moral leadership” is much, much weaker than its moralistic proponents (mostly Democrats, pacifists and RP) claim it to be. Superior “holiness” does not, in itself, prevent violent people from doing evil things.
In other words, if our 21st Century Super-power shirks its DUTY to be the world’s policeman, then the world’s thugs and bully-boys will call the tune that we find ourselves dancing to.