why people romantice magic over most science.

It could be both -- the hard "magic" (learning quantum physics and constructing your own device) is too hard for most people, and the soft "magic" (using a standard device bought in the nearest supermarket) feels too impersonal, and also doesn't make you special.

So perhaps the desire for magic is the desire for awesome things to be (1) rare, but (2) relatively simple for the protagonist, and (3) feel natural after mastering them. A world where at most 10 years of studying somehow makes you able to to do all kinds of awesome stuff semi-automatically, while most of the population somehow can't do the same.

(Uncharitably, we could say that it is a desire to achieve extremely high prestige relatively cheaply.)

Also, the magic is supposed to be useful for personal purposes. Suppose you are an expert on quantum physics -- does it allow you to cast fireballs in self-defense, build a fortress on the top of the mountain, levitate, turn your neighbors into zombies, become invisible, or see through walls? Your magical equivalent in the parallel world can do most of this.

I concur on "do what I want" as the distinction. Magic is teleological: it produces a certain effect, whereas science is about the cause. Magic "just works." You do not need to know how the magic words produce light or fire, they just do. The great usual magical dream is about having massive power under your control, not whether you are the direct cause. Wishes are the archetypal example. You wish for something and it happens. Done. A genie is neither you nor a tool you control, just a massive source of power bound to your wishes.

Magical horror stories are about wishing for effects and either not liking the cause or not specifying the effect properly, like the evil genie or the monkey's paw. Science horror stories are about starting a cause without realizing its effects.

There are plenty of science-like magical stories, where they delve into the rules of magic and effects from causes. And don't those read a lot more like science fiction, whereas a space opera like Star Wars has the trappings of science fiction but Jedi are just space wizards that produce effects by willing them.

I think there can be something else to it; Magic, in most stories, requires tremendously less infrastructure. It takes some years of study and a short chant, say, to create a fireball.

To make a flamethrower takes some years of study, a couple of mines, thousands of people, manufacturing capability, etc. There's a lot more personal effectiveness in magic.

Disclaimer: I'm a mechanical engineer that spends most of my time on software these days. I can make all sorts of intersesting things, but the appeal of being an archwizard is definitely there.

It is an annoying thing about my mind that I can remember something without knowing where it as from. If I can located my original sources I'll will add them. However I do observe that people are drawn to the idea of doing something themselves out of their own abilities over using outside means such as tools, money or political power. And I predict that if people could see science not just in terms of inventions but as a way to become stronger as a human being, then more people would be drawn to it.

I might just being falling into the typical mind fallacy but that is still my prediction. I would like to expand my knowledge on this matter and find a way to test this prediction, but I don't know how to do it right now as things are

I have sometimes mused that accumulating political power (or generally being able to socially engineer) is the closest to magic that we have in the real world. It's the force multiplier that magic is used for in fiction by a single protagonist. Most people who want magic also do not follow political careers. Of course, this is only a musing because there are lots of differences. No matter how much power you accumulate you are still beholden to someone or something, so if independence is a big part of your magical power fantasy then it won't help.