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"the mysterious Platonic bridge between the mathematical and the physical" (31).

This bridge between mathematics and physics can be well explained in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Mathematical objects have a a foundation in extramental reality, but their notions are completed by an act of the mind. Physical objects have an immediate foundation in reality (e.g. 'stone' in this stone), and mathematical objects have a remote foundation in reality (e.g. 'line' in a 'stone' of this stone). Mathematical objects are "mental elaborations remotely based on real quantity but proximately on the mind's constructive activity" (Maurer, 55).

See Armand Maurer, "Thomists and Thomas Aquinas on the Foundation of Mathematics," Review of Metaphysics 47 (1993): 43-61.