Wikipedia says that this is the conclusion of Wheeler's experiment:
> Any explanation of what goes on in a specific individual observation of one photon has to take into account the whole experimental apparatus of the complete quantum state consisting of both photons, and it can only make sense after all information concerning complementary variables has been recorded. Our results demonstrate that the viewpoint that the system photon behaves either definitely as a wave or definitely as a particle would require faster-than-light communication. Because this would be in strong tension with the special theory of relativity, we believe that such a viewpoint should be given up entirely.
Wheeler’s delayed choice excitement is referred to as a thought expirement both by the physicists in the article as well as the first line in its Wikipedia entry. Like Einstein, he worked through many thought excitements that suggested an outcome, but couldn’t be tested at the time. However, many of Einstein’s proposed experiments that have since been observed are still referred to as his thought expiriments.
We may be saying the same thing, but worth making the distinction.
For the other poster (diggsey), it will be difficult to answer your question about the novelty of these newly run expiriments without a full read of the article.
Local hidden variables are only ruled out if you reject superdeterminism. At least one Nobel prize winning physicist is developing a superdeterministic theory of QM.
And of course, non-local classical theories like de Broglie-Bohm are just fine, once again.
> Any explanation of what goes on in a specific individual observation of one photon has to take into account the whole experimental apparatus of the complete quantum state consisting of both photons, and it can only make sense after all information concerning complementary variables has been recorded. Our results demonstrate that the viewpoint that the system photon behaves either definitely as a wave or definitely as a particle would require faster-than-light communication. Because this would be in strong tension with the special theory of relativity, we believe that such a viewpoint should be given up entirely.