Modeling the metabolic CO₂ flux

It is perhaps a matter of taste, but I find analytical solutions, as opposed to numerical ones, more enlightening. Unfortunately, the complexity of photosynthesis means that analytical descriptions can only be achieved at the expense of gross simplification . . . [these models] can be useful aids to understanding, and for prediction, but are also potential hazards when the simplifications involved are forgotten.Graham Farquhar (1989)