[clavalle]

It can take a bit of unpacking, but someone with some sort of college level physics and mathematics background can use Wikipedia to get a basic understanding of what they are talking about.

They are basically saying that the quantum mechanical 'strangeness' of light can be explained with classical, deterministic, physics. It is not necessary to have a separation in which quantum mechanics predominates at one level and trumps classical mechanics.

It call all be understood as movement of 'particles' of light (photons) on an underlying wave.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_flux_quantum

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_flux

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux_tube

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_vortex

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_packet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_equations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_equation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarization_%28waves%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_dynamics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_wave

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Broglie%E2%80%93Bohm_theory

[itistoday2]

Pilot wave theory has been known for decades. So can someone explain how whatever they're talking about is different/new?

[cgearhart]

Their central claim is that they found a specific instance of quantum behavior where they can represent the whole model with only classical mechanics rather than falling back on quantum explanations like wavefunction collapse, etc. We think that describing quantum systems requires quantum explanations, so finding a counterexample could be interesting.

[clavalle]

So they claim that up until now pilot wave theory hasn't been able to explain entanglement while remaining consistent with Maxwell's equations.

They are not saying they came up with pilot wave theory, only that they've removed a sticking point.