Lancelot Law Whyte, p. 19 of Essay on Atomism, 1961.
Physics is thus the continuous critique of quantitative laws.
Theory confronts experiment, and both sides are a mixture of obscurity and clarity. Unconscious assumptions are hidden in the obscure ideas which have suggested the calculus, and unknown structures and processes are exploited in the experimental situation which provides the numerical results. Thus the interplay of ideas and measurements improves and extends both, by drawing previously concealed features out of the obscure realms into the clarity of mathematics and of measurement.