  Weyl soon grasped the significance of Hilbert’s program, and came to  acknowledge its “immense significance and   scope”[29].  Whether that program could be successfully carried out was, of  course, still an open question. But independently of this issue Weyl  was concerned about what he saw as the loss of content resulting from Hilbert’s thoroughgoing formalization of mathematics. “Without  doubt,” Weyl warns, “if mathematics is to remain a  serious cultural concern, then some sense must be attached  to Hilbert’s game of formulae.” Weyl thought that this sense  could only be supplied by “fusing” mathematics and  physics so that “the mathematical concepts of number, function, etc. (or Hilbert’s symbols) generally partake in the theoretical  construction of reality in the same way as the concepts of energy,  gravitation, electron,   etc.”[30]  Indeed, in Weyl’s view, “it is the function of mathematics to  be at the service of the natural sciences”. But still: