Could this be a case of physics being more "tangible", thus leading to more obvious paths? Like, if you only study pure maths and you stay in your field, can y

Could this be a case of physics being more "tangible", thus leading to more obvious paths? Like, if you only study pure maths and you stay in your field, can you really point to a concrete direction for where to look for new stuff? In physics, your job is literally to study how the universe already behaves, so you have a frame of reference to take inspiration from and the efforts are a bit more concentrated. In fact, since models don't describe reality perfectly, you can always observe where it fails to know in which direction to attack. In maths, on the other hand, everything that is proven is correct forever. The model is reality. So it seems to be more difficult to find criticalities to look for. It's more of a "I wonder if this property does or doesn't hold" ordeal, which seems much more vague. Just a question.