Throughout his career the geographer, and first reader in the 'new' geography at the University of Oxford, Halford Mackinder (1861-1947) described his discipline as a branch of physics. This essay explores this feature of Mackinder's thought and presents the connections between him and the Royal Institution professor of natural philosophy John Tyndall (1820-1893). My reframing of Mackinder's geography demonstrates that the academic professionalization of geography owed as much to the methods and instruments of popular natural philosophy and physics as it did to theories of Darwinian natural selection. In tracing the parallels between Tyndall and Mackinder, and their shared emphasis upon the technology of the magic lantern and the imagination as tools of scientific investigation and education, the article elucidates their common pedagogical practices. Mackinder's disciplinary vision was expressed in practices of visualization, and in metaphors inspired by physics, to audiences of geographers and geography teachers in the early twentieth century. Together, these features of Mackinder's geography demonstrate his role as a popularizer of science and extend the temporal and spatial resonance of Tyndall's natural philosophy.

中文翻译：

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根据物理学塑造：哈尔福德·麦金德地理学的范围和方法

在他的整个职业生涯中，这位地理学家和牛津大学“新”地理学的第一位读者哈尔福德·麦金德（Halford Mackinder，1861-1947）将他的学科描述为物理学的一个分支。本文探讨了麦金德思想的这一特点，并介绍了他与皇家学会自然哲学教授约翰·廷德尔（John Tyndall，1820-1893 年）之间的联系。我对麦金德地理学的重新构架表明，地理学的学术专业化既归功于流行的自然哲学和物理学的方法和工具，也归功于达尔文的自然选择理论。在追溯廷德尔和麦金德之间的相似之处，以及他们对魔术灯技术和想象力作为科学研究和教育工具的共同强调时，文章阐明了他们共同的教学实践。二十世纪初，麦金德的学科视野通过可视化实践和受物理学启发的隐喻向地理学家和地理教师的听众表达。麦金德地理学的这些特征共同展示了他作为科学普及者的作用，并扩展了廷德尔自然哲学的时空共鸣。