Bell's theorem remains true, but pilot wave theory achieves the quantum results by sacrificing locality instead of hidden variables.
> how does the description of entanglement as "spooky action at a distance" not violate those?
It's just a name, and an old one at that. I suppose if you ascribe it to non-locality then it really does involve something FTL on some level, but even with a standard locality-preserving, no hidden variables theory, no information travels faster than light so you don't actually hit a FTL problem. The strange thing is that the quantum state appears to behave consistently regardless of its spatial extent, which is weird.
> How long do you think it would take to reason intelligently about it?
I would have thought that someone in a PhD mathematics program would be well equipped to understand the mathematics - maybe the hard part is finding a good resource that takes things in a good order. I'm afraid I can't really recommend anything, though Feynman's stuff is probably good.
Sheesh, these are awfully handwavy questions for someone who was in a math ph D program. I should really sit sown and learn quantum mechanics for a while with the math. How long do you think it would take to reason intelligently about it? Going by what Feynman said, maybe I can't.