From the experimental point of view probability enters quantum theory just like classical statistical physics, i.e. as an expected relative frequency. However it is well known that the statistical formalism of quantum theory is quite different from the usual Kolmogorovian one involving, for example, complex numbers, amplitudes, Hilbet spaces... The quantum statistical formalism has been described, developped, applied, generalized with the contributions of many authors; however its theoretical status remained, until recently, quite obscure, as shown by the widely contrasting statements that one can find in the vast literature concerning the following questions.\ud
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Is it possible to justify the choice of the classical or the quantum statistical formalism, for the description of a given set of statistical data, on rigorous mathematical criteria rather than on empirical ones