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Having a background in both mathematics and journalism, I'm interested in examples of previously barely recognized mathematical achievements that received recognition after having been given attention by journalists through expository articles.

A good example is given by Victor Protsak's answer to the MO question "Major mathematical advancements past age fifty", where he mentions the work of Thomas Royen. His proof of the Gaussian Correlation Inequality received little attention upon its publication in 2014. It was only after Natalie Wolchover published a Quanta article in 2017 that he was given wide public and academic acclaim - as stated on his wiki page.

Question: are there other examples of mathematical work that were long forgotten or barely recognized, only to be revived by journalists who wrote up a story on the theorem(s) and the history behind them?

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    $\begingroup$ Depends on what you mean by “gained recognition.” Royen’s proof was already recognized as correct and original in the probability community when Latala and Matlak wrote their survey of Royen’s argument which I believe happened a few years before the Quanta article. If you mean “became famous” then that’s a different story. $\endgroup$
    – shalop
    Commented Oct 23, 2022 at 23:31
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    $\begingroup$ Perhaps David Gale and Somos sequences in the Mathematical Intelligencer? $\endgroup$
    – Somos
    Commented Oct 24, 2022 at 0:13
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    $\begingroup$ Potentially related: Fields of mathematics that were dormant for a long time until someone revitalized them. But I guess it depends on whether you mean recognition by the general public (the usual target audience of people who call themselves "journalists") or recognition by the community of research mathematicians (who don't usually use the term "journalist" to refer to a mathematician writing an expository article for other mathematicians). For example, when Siegel studied and wrote about Riemann's Nachlass, was he being a "journalist"? Probably not. $\endgroup$
    – Timothy Chow
    Commented Oct 24, 2022 at 13:41
  • $\begingroup$ @shalop Indeed, you and Timothy Chow are right about this distinction one ought to make. To me, recognition by fellow mathematicians is probably more important, and I thought that was what was lacking in the case of Royen. I checked Latala and Matlak's survey, and it appeared by the end of 2015 (29th of December) on the ArXiv. Royen's proof was published in august 2014, so that's still 1,5 years in between. $\endgroup$
    – Max Lonysa Muller
    Commented Oct 26, 2022 at 10:51

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There are several examples featuring Martin Gardner. R. B. Kershner's work on tiling the plane with convex pentagons would probably have been largely ignored (with his mistake remaining undiscovered for who knows how long) had Gardner not chosen to write about it. Conway's Game of Life was also unknown to all but a few people close to Conway until Gardner wrote about it. I'm sure there are many other Martin Gardner examples.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you for both of your answers! They encompass interesting examples indeed $\endgroup$
    – Max Lonysa Muller
    Commented Oct 24, 2022 at 22:14
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To elaborate on Somos's comment, David Gale wrote about The Strange and Surprising Saga of the Somos Sequences in the December 1991 "Mathematical Entertainments" column of the Mathematical Intelligencer. First studied by Michael Somos in the course of his investigations of elliptic theta functions, these amazing sequences continue to inspire new research to this day; see for example the OEIS entry A006720 for Somos-4.

This example is a little unusual, though, because I don't think that Somos (or anyone else) formally published any research papers on Somos sequences before Gale's expository article. In a footnote, Gale wrote:

Somos actually discovered his sequences eight years ago but did not succeed in capturing the attention of the mathematical community until the summer of 1989.

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