The "Wizard of Ozone", Edith Farkas was an inspiration to her gender especially during the mid to late 1900's. She emigrated to New Zealand after five tortuous years fleeing Hungary during WW2 with her sister and aged parents. Her qualifications were not recognised in NZ so she was required to return to university to obtain her Masters Degree in Physics before commencing work at the NZ Meteorological Service in 1951 where she remained for some 35 years. The dedicated research and observations with her beloved Dobson Spectrophotometer contributed substantially towards the discovery of the "hole in the ozone layer" which changed the world's behaviour towards pollution forever. In 1975 Edith was the first Hungarian woman (and NZ Met Service female staff member) to set foot in Antarctica. She was an accomplished skier, bush walker, pianist and spoke a number of languages. Prior to her death, Edith pragmatically organised her diaries and archives. Her WW2 diary forms the basis of this book.
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RidgeKemeny Joined: Oct-21-2014 |
Andrew Kemeny is the eldest of Edi's three nephews and has taken responsibility as the family archivist. Andrew was hugely influenced by Edi and followed in her footsteps by attending the same university as she did in Wellington NZ, also studying physics, mathematics, chemistry and the new fangled "computing" sciences. Edi was a patient teacher and tutored Andrew through his gruelling studies. Andrew completely departed from science in his early twenties and worked in the corporate world in both NZ and Australia for some twenty years. Andrew emigrated to Australia in 1987 and has two sons. Commencing his own business in 2001 he subsequently moved to be with his partner in Lightning Ridge, home of the famous black opal in 2011. The environment of Lightning Ridge is conducive to contemplation and organisation of one's affairs so he set about documenting the family history through the generations. This book combines texts from various sources and is dedicated to Edi's lasting legacy.
