Pearl Street Mall

09/07/2026

09/04/2026

“It is necessary for us to assume a universal medium for the transmission of force. This results from the necessity of explaining the action of bodies at a distance. Energy transmitted from the sun to the earth through some very attenuated medium. To show how such medium may be used under certain conditions I may refer to a feat I once accomplished of converting a column of gas into a solid body by the application of electricity in a certain manner. The gas became rigid and vibrated like a steel wire. Scientific men have not noticed the importance of this as yet. Again, I have produced a solid body in the air on the end of a wire. I made a flame which consumed nothing and which showed signs of solidification, for it offered resistance to the passage of bodies through it.”

–Nikola Tesla

“Tesla’s Visit To Chicago.” Western Electrician, May 20, 1899.