Dr. Chieh-chien Chang and the Tornado Machine, circa 1969. Courtesy of ACUA

In 1969, a man-made tornado started swirling elegantly at a Catholic University lab. According to the university’s Envoy magazine, it was “generated within a rotating screen six feet in diameter and nine feet high” for researchers to study a natural tornado’s “peculiar elements responsible for near-the-ground destruction.” The machine was a brainchild of Dr. Chang, whose field of interest shifted in the 1960s.

When he was elected member of the prestigious Academia Sinica in Taiwan in 1966, his involvement with military-related aeronautical science was coming to an end. The department sustained its connections with NASA, but since 1966, Dr. Chang had devoted his energy to the design and construction of a tornado research lab, which was established in 1969. The tornado machine featured in scientific magazines and appeared in the university course catalog two years in a row to attract the attention of undergraduate students.

Dr. Chang's personal success dovetailed with the shifting public perception of Chinese Americans during the Cold War. He arrived in the United States in 1940 as a student, a previleged class of Chinese immigrants in America. However, it is worth noting that the Chinese Exclusion Act remained the law of the land when he enterd America and that it would not be repealed for another three years. Things changed dramatically during and after the Second World War. By the time Dr. Chang took the picture with his tornado machine, the American government was deep in its competition with Communist countries like China and the Soviet Union. Chinese talents in America, whose home country was under Communist control, were widely perceived as strong evidence of the superiority of the American way of life. 

The story between Dr. Chang and his tornado machine sends a message of silent protest against this Cold War mentality. The alumni association of his alma mater, for one, describes his decision to move from aeronautics to atmospheric physics as an act to evade participation in military experiments that had targeted Chinese forces. Dr. Chang had started his career as a member of aeronautical projects that had deep connections with the US military (for instance, his 1948 article in the Journal of Aeronautical Science provided new methods to control the attack angles of a missile). Instead of complying with the expectation that American academia fostered great warriors of the Cold War, Chang's decision shows the agency of a scientist who valued both his Chinese and American identities. It is possible that his choice of atmospheric physics and the tornado machine in the 1960s was a personal leap towards peaceful scientific research.