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Blog: The other pistons
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I was searching for the latest scores and standings of my beloved NBA team, the Detroit Pistons. I typed the word “piston” into my search engine, Bing, and clicked enter. The image below popped up.
This internet search has brought about a big chuckle, and I silently laughed to myself. The Bing result shows both “pistons” that I know of: The Detroit Pistons (my favorite NBA team), and the other pistons — those magic pieces that every car has in its engine.
Maybe it is just me, but the mention of the other pistons incites a deeply rooted passion of mine, and awaken great memories dating back to childhood and my early youth. The passion for the physics of electricity and machinery, the passion for engineering, and in particular, for engines and motors and how they work.
In a prior post, from August 2, 2017, I talked about my original passion, engineering, and how ending up in medicine was not planned. I talked in the post about my fascination with how electric motors and generators work, and how entering medicine has enhanced my passion for technology and engineering.
Electric motors utilize the concept of electric magnets in the form of copper wires coiled around metals turning them into magnets which turn on-off so fast and thus rotate between permanent magnets.
While the aforementioned mechanism is a mere simplification for modern days’ electric motors, the original concept remains the same as explained.
Gas engines in cars, on the other hand, work in a totally different fashion. They utilize the power resulting from burning of pressurized, vaporized gasoline (a mini-explosion) inside a sturdy, tightly closed cylinder (yes, this is how cars or motor bikes are classified as two-cylinder, 4-cylinder, 8-cylinder, etc). These mini-explosions inside the cylinders will then drive the pistons upward. As shown in the figure, the piston is a sturdy steel structure that is molded to slide up and down the cylinder following the mini-explosions. This repeated motion resulting from up-down sliding of the pistons inside the cylinders will be transferred into continuous rotation that will be transmitted ultimately to the wheels (but do not forget the clutch and the gear, etc). Thus, the car will move.
So, now back to the Detroit Pistons.
Since coming to Flint, Michigan in 1992, and with this deeply rooted passion for engineering, I have always wondered if the Detroit Pistons were named after the cars’ pistons? I would ask friends and colleagues,including those who are die hard Pistonians, but I could not get the answer. That was before the era of the internet and search engines.
Now, I have found the answer, as I did the search.
According to Wikipedia, the Pistons moved to Detroit in 1957, and have since won three NBA championships (1989, 1990 and 2004). But I was surprised to learn that the Pistons franchise did not start in Detroit or even in Michigan. In fact, the Pistons started in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1941.
Over the years, I have witnessed the ups and downs of the Pistons since I came to Michigan in the early 1990’s. I have shared with Michiganders the joy of the 2004 NBA championship, at which time the five starters of the team became very popular at a national level. I prefer to watch games on TV at home; until recently, I had prior attended only 2 NBA games in my life. Those two games were for my second favorite NBA team, the Pacers, in the 1990’s. I developed the passion for the Pacers when I was living in Indianapolis during my Endocrine fellowship at Indiana University.
One of these games was played in Atlanta, Georgia, hosted by the Hawks. At the time, I was attending the national annual meeting of the American College of Physicians, to receive my FACP honorary title. As I was walking through the hallways, I noticed an ad for tickets for the Pacers-Hawks game. I asked many doctor-friends to accompany me to the game. No one was interested? So, I decided to go solo. I learned that the subway station was below the convention center, and it stops below the arena. I took the subway, attended the game, and spent a wonderful time alone. But the irony was that my seat was in the middle of a section with Hawks’ fans. I would not dare cheer for my Pacers. In fact, I was handed a small Hawks banner, and was asked to raise it on demand! I felt defeated. And the Pacers lost the game. But I could not show any expressions of sentiment!
The good news is that finally, I have recently had the pleasure of attending a Pistons’ game. This happened few weeks ago, when a good friend of mine had invited me to join him and two other wonderful friends of his, who are both in the health care field. The new arena for the Pistons is the grand, spectacular Little Caesars Arena, in Downtown Detroit. The game was against the Chicago Bulls.
The recent moving of the Pistons from Auburn Hills, one of Detroit’s suburbs, to the heart of Detroit’s downtown has meant a lot to the people of Detroit and to all Michiganders. Everyone remembers the golden days of Detroit when it was the world’s capital of the auto industry: The Motor Town. It was so sad how Detroit lost that shining past, with the fall of the auto industry, which immensely devastated Detroit, Flint and other Michigan cities.
But it is so soothing to see life coming back to Detroit and Flint and the other cities. Perhaps the Pistons will play a major role in bringing life back to Detroit, perhaps not as the world’s capital in making cars (with the pistons inside), but as a city which will never die.
Likewise, Flint also is coming back to life as vibrantly as it had long stood. As the lovely town that it had used to be. Just like my passion for Detroit and its fantastic surroundings and suburbs, I also have strong connections to Flint, being the first town I arrived to in 1992. That was my first arrival to America from overseas, to start my Internal Medicine Residency at Hurley Medical Center, in downtown Flint (an affiliate of Michigan State University). My love for Flint is not measurable; I have so many friends and colleagues there. While I lived in Flint for some time, practicing medicine in the private sector, my passion for academia took me away from Flint, to East Lansing (the home of MSU), to join the university in 2005. But I still connect with Flint in so many ways. My son, who was born in Flint in the early 1990’s, has recently moved back to Flint to start his career as a school teacher.
Our school, MSU, has been extending/strengthening ties with Flint’s health care partners. MSU, which had had strong presence in Flint for several decades, has started a graduate public health program in downtown Flint; the downtown that has come back to life. Our research group has recently completed and published a large pivotal study in collaboration with Flint’s health partners.
Yes, Detroit and Flint will never die, even after the fall of the auto industry. They are alive because the people of Detroit and Flint have big hearts and because they are so resilient.
And, I trust that the Detroit Pistons will be one group of the pistons that will keep Michigan moving.