Quantum theory as a description of robust experiments: Application to Stern-Gerlach and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm experiments

TL;DR

This paper argues that quantum theory naturally arises from organizing experimental data to maximize the separation between system description and data acquisition, supported by applications to key quantum experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a thesis that quantum descriptions emerge from data organization principles, linking robustness and independence assumptions to quantum formalism.

Findings

Supports thesis with Stern-Gerlach and EPR-Bohm experiments

Shows quantum description linked to data robustness and independence

Connects logical inference principles to quantum equations

Abstract

We propose and develop the thesis that the quantum theoretical description of experiments emerges from the desire to organize experimental data such that the description of the system under scrutiny and the one used to acquire the data are separated as much as possible. Application to the Stern-Gerlach and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm experiments are shown to support this thesis. General principles of logical inference which have been shown to lead to the Schr\"odinger and Pauli equation and the probabilistic descriptions of the Stern-Gerlach and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm experiments, are used to demonstrate that the condition for the separation procedure to yield the quantum theoretical description is intimately related to the assumptions that the observed events are independent and that the data generated by these experiments is robust with respect to small changes of the conditions under which the experiment is carried out.