Another interesting thing about Pascual Jordan was, it was he who invented "Fermi Dirac statistics" but his paper on this was stuck in the bottom of one of [editor] Max Born's suitcases for a year or two, hence he did not get any "I'm the first" credit. Another large miscredit was the "Schrodinger equation" actually was first invented by Cornelius Lanczos. Who also invented the FFT. Lanczos was good at not getting famous. Born was very apologetic when he realized what he'd thus done to Jordan's fame... Of what use are prizes? Well, surely less use if the prize awarders make bad decisions! But anyhow, I think it is related to sports. Turns science into a spectator sport, with prizes, like winning a tennis tournament. This amuses all, and connects with Darwinian desires for fame related to mating attractiveness. It also helps focus the attention of beginners on important work. A big downside is, bad prize decisions can cause a lot of damage to an area.