Quantum know-how
Recent work (1) has further demonstrated the futility of attempting to mechanistically explain the universe, replete with the inexplicable in the context of accepted theories. The theoretical work exposes the possibility of hiding quantum ignorance in the presence of quantified information. That is to say, if somebody is ignorant of certain parts of the information set, in the quantum world, such ignorance can be hidden and the incomplete information can proxy for the whole information.
This is an extremely interesting finding, with significant implications. It may point to the idea that we have an incorrect definition of information itself. The mechanistic formulations drive us to think of information in a certain way, which may be incorrect. It is not that we do not have good answers to what we find, it is that we do not really know how the answers can be expressed. It is not just lack of knowledge itself but the definition of what can be known. Thus, the core of the status-quo framework, has to be challenged and rethought. It has been corroding for nearly a century with no end in sight.
Let's visualize this in a different way. Suppose a colony of intelligent ants have figured out that if they stack up mud beyond certain level, it may be unstable. Based on this, they formulated a "theory of everything," that explains most of what they see and act on. Often, they will be surprised by water flowing up from the ground and bits of leaves flying up in the air. Items may show up at their doorstep for no apparent reason and from nowhere. The ants have two choices – they could take the existing framework and attempt to explain the weird observations or they can think about inventing a new framework.
Contemporary Physics is in a similar spot. They have problems explaining phenomena at any scale – at large scale, it is unclear why the universe is behaving the way it is and at small scale, observations defy explanations. Much effort has been spent on "bending," status-quo to fit the observations. An easier and more productive path forward could be starting over.
(1) Journal reference: T. Vidick and S. Wehner, "Does Ignorance of the Whole Imply Ignorance of the Parts? Large Violations of Noncontextuality in Quantum Theory", Physical Review Letters 107, 030402 (2011); http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v107/i3/e030402. A free preprint is available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1011.6448.
