>>12063684good page to see the problem and the "still not quite finished" explanation of the "photonic conception", on the other hand theres the (apparently less?) accepted magnetic conception of Quantum field theory which is more similar to an aether conception:
What is a magnetic field made of?
>A:The electromagnetic interaction is mediated by the constant exchange of photons from one charged object to another. The magnetic field is really just a classical approximation to the photon-exchange picture. In a moving reference frame, a magnetic field appears instead as a combination of a magnetic field and an electric field, so electric and magnetic fields are made of the same "stuff" (photons).>Some electromagnetic interactions involve "real" photons with definite frequencies, energies, and momenta. Electrostatic and magnetic fields involve the exchange of "virtual" photons instead---
>I'll take the opportunity to somewhat modify Tom's presentation. We routinely say things like "virtual photons are constantly being emitted and re-absorbed by the electron" but that isn't really what we mean. Two particles that are interacting electromagnetically are indeed surrounded by a virtual photon cloud. in familiar cases (e.g. a hydrogen atom) that cloud is completely unchanging in time. Nothing at all is going on. The words about things fluctuating around are a rough way to convey one of the peculiar properties of quantum fields----
>A:There is one sense in which you're right that you shouldn't think of magnetic fields as being made of photons. If you have any specific numbers of photons of each type, the expected magnetic field is zero. To get anything like a classical well-defined magnetic field you need a big spread of possible photon numbers.That's a lot different than thinking each photon contributes some field 
