I also find Quanta articles rarely satisfactory with respect to the historical and social aspects of science (culture, ideas, experiments, interest...) but prio

I also find Quanta articles rarely satisfactory with respect to the historical and social aspects of science (culture, ideas, experiments, interest...) but prioritizing explaining research and concepts over talking about people is a well justified editorial choice for a scientific magazine. In this case there is a link to the article in the first paragraph and as the article discusses the whole history of maximum flow finding the new and exciting developments in the second half is quite reasonable.