Not quite. A similar thing does surprise me; that quantum theory was discovered when researching particle physics and is only recently making inroads in other f

Not quite. A similar thing does surprise me; that quantum theory was discovered when researching particle physics and is only recently making inroads in other fields. That it applies to physics too is expected, because one way to characterise the quantum language is that it defines what one system can possibly do or say to another system. The source of those limitations is not yet completely clear, i.e. it hasn't been satisfactorily axiomized. But we can get close and it seems it's a logical restraint based around self-consistency. Assuming the universe must be self-consistent, it must also obey QM.