Your original interpretation was right. Perhaps I underestimated the number of physicists hanging out here. (I hope so! It would be cool to think people here know who these guys are.) In any case, the original point remains: even on Hacker News, Marie Curie is far better-known than Lev Landau, and it's not because she was the greater scientist.

I am not a physicist, and I have not heard of either of those guys, but I've heard of Curie and Carver.

I have a Landau book in my hands right now ;)