> to create a powerful new tool in cryptography.

What is that new powerful tool in cryptography, then?

> He wanted to build zero-knowledge proofs that weren’t interactive. Thirty years earlier, Goldreich and Oren had established that such proofs are impossible.

I'm not sure what "interactive" means here, but I thought ZK-SNARKs were already non-interactive.

It seems the article has nothing to do with anything practical..

You are correct. I suspect Quanta just needed some sort of "math filler".

Typical of Quanta magazine