As someone who loved both math and physics, this was why I always found math a bit easier. Everything rests on a solid foundation and you can justify each step. When I got into higher physics, it was so riddled with intuitive arguments as opposed to rigor that I didn't fare so well. I'm sure one can find mathematical justifications for their methods, but it's not part of the curriculum, and almost none of the professors (in a top 10 physics school) knew them either.
Apart from the occasional Einstein and Newton every couple of centuries, physics seems to advance by throwing a semi-random selection of PhD dissertations at the real world and seeing if any of them happen to match experiment.
Case in point: Newton's work was not that rigorous. It was not till the 1800's that calculus was put on a firm foundation. Of course, things were all different back then.
