The term photon was introduced to designate a constituent of light and other electromagnetic radiation, which manifests the properties of waves. But these waves were found to be confined to packets with discrete amounts of energy. Since such behavior of waves is not observed in the known substances, these quantized waves presented conceptual problems, leading to much debate and controversy that persists to the present time.

Furthermore, the electric and magnetic fields, associated with these waves, are oriented perpendicular to the direction of wave propagation. Since transverse waves were known to propagate only in elastic solids, the investigators could not understand why light can propagate in the vacuum, which was supposed to be empty. Because waves need a substance to propagate in, the vacuum would therefore have to be an elastic solid, which of course it cannot be, as objects like the earth, are freely moving through it. Hence, in 1905, Albert Einstein proposed that the photon is both, a particle, and a wave: then it could move in the empty vacuum as a particle, but when investigated, it would behave like a transverse wave. Some people apparently have the imagination to visualize such a thing, but in spite of that, and all the research, they could not describe the structure of this strange beast, so that in 1951 Einstein lamented:

All these 50 years of pondering have not brought me closer to answering the question ‘what are light-quanta?’

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As it turns out, if treated properly, the photon is a fairly well behaved animal.

Clearly, since the photon is a wave, it must propagate in a substance. This substance is called aether, which must be in a gaseous form so that it is compressible. Then the electric potential is related to the pressure in the aether, and the vector potential corresponds to the flow in the aether.

Consequently, since the electric field is defined as the time-rate of change of the vector potential and the gradient of the scalar potential, it must be related to the acceleration in the aether. Furthermore, since the magnetic field is defined as the curl of the vector potential, it must correspond to the rotation of the flow in the aether.

Since the photon represents a particular spiral flow in the aether, the acceleration occurs in the radial direction, which is perpendicular to the direction of propagation, accounting for the direction of the electric field. Similarly, with the twisting spiral flow is associated a rotation in the aether which gives rise to the observed transverse magnetic field.

While the spiral flow is subject to radial acceleration and rotation, it propagates with a constant translational speed, so that the fields, which are derivatives of flow, are zero in the direction of its propagation.

Thus, the photon represents a flow in the aether in the form of an undulating spiral that causes transverse accelarations perceived as electromagnetic fields.