“turned off”
Historically, in terms of development, it seems that math precedes physics, and physics precedes engineering. In a nutshell, it’s coming up with the ability to model something effectively.
As the pointy-heads play their games, they will eventually come up with something practical. Discovery and invention is not a linear progression.
Historically physics did not precede engineering.
Engineering generally preceded physics.
Engineering is fundamentally empirical. If something works, it works, and is used whether or not the reason why it works is understood. That is still the case. Physics supplies some handy formulas that are sometimes useful, or that engineers torture into usefulness, as modeling tools, but this rarely survives testing.