But what if your box was made of carbon fibers?

Or to say it in another way, you can catch a phenomena in a logical box or in a mathematical box. The logical box is coarse but strong. The mathematical box is fine-grained but flimsy. The mathematical box is a beautiful way of wrapping up the problem, but it will not hold the phenomena unless they have been caught in a logical box to begin with.
-John R. Platt