  To reveal the discrepancy between this formal account of continuity  based on real numbers and the properties of an intuitively given  continuum, Weyl next considers the experience of seeing a pencil  lying on a table before him throughout a certain time interval. The  position of the pencil during this interval may be taken as a  function of the time, and Weyl takes it as a fact of observation that during the time interval in question this function is continuous and  that its values fall within a definite range. And so, he says,