‘Every quantitative observation, every observation making use of measurement, is by nature discontinuous. … However far we go in the pursuit of accuracy we shall never get anything other than a finite series of discrete results. … The raw material of our quantitative cognition of nature will always have this primitive and discontinuous character. … It is possible that a physical system might be so simple that this meagre information would suffice to settle its fate; in that case nature would not be more complicated than a game of chess. To determine a position of a game of chess thirty-three facts suffice. … If nature is more complicated than a game of chess, a belief to which one tends to incline, then a physical system cannot be determined by a finite number of observations. But in practice a finite number of observations is all that we could make.’