Comment by JimTheMan
6 hours ago
The problem with point 2, is that person couldn't then work on other things. And there's a limited supply of people of that capability in the world.
We're now at stage where we can turn energy into thought to generate expertise on demand.
I think you are interpreting 2 as offering some large amount of money as a prize for discovering a solution. But I think it was meant more as funding a team of mathematicians to work on the problem.