Ask HN: Why Martin Gardner is no longer popular?

Well, first I'd want to confirm or not the assumption in the question: Isn't he? Popular compared with when? etc.

He's a decade deceased, so that's probably not helping his popularity...

But I'd argue he is still popular, though the very nature of what "popularity" means has changed even since he passed, so I don't know honestly how to really even address the comparison to modern "YouTube" stars.

I have no idea what materials there are today for math-interested kids. Is his stuff not used anymore?

I think "less accessible" is a disingenuous way to put it. The internet has made his works more accessible, not less. The problem (for the Gardner estate, I suppose) is not availability, but discovery - there is significantly more math content to digest (for free!) and therefore lower probability any one budding mathematician is digesting Gardner content.

Here's a list of the SciAm articles, which I assume were the gateway to his books -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Martin_Gardner_Mathema...

One of the most iconic, John Conway's game of life wouldn't be an article today, it'd be swamped by many authors quickly. But many articles still seem unique. Can the hard slogs survive when the icing is gone?

Really I think it's just down to most kids don't get stuck in a library or at home with only SciAm to read anymore.

That sort of information flow is dead. It's pull not push, which Martin Gardner's format doesn't fit. Pull is bit sized.

Equally kids now can read peer review straight from the source and also peoples criticism, SciAm is no longer the gatekeeper, you lose the recreation for better science.