My model is that early on physics had very impressive & novel math, which attracted people who like math, who did more math largely with the constraint the math had to be trying to model something in the real world, which produced more impressive & novel math, which attracted more people who like math, etc etc, and this is the origin of the equilibrium.
Note a similar argument can be made for economics, though the nice math came much later on, and obviously was much less impactful than literally inventing calculus.
My model is that early on physics had very impressive & novel math, which attracted people who like math, who did more math largely with the constraint the math had to be trying to model something in the real world, which produced more impressive & novel math, which attracted more people who like math, etc etc, and this is the origin of the equilibrium.
Note a similar argument can be made for economics, though the nice math came much later on, and obviously was much less impactful than literally inventing calculus.