Level repulsion in the ground-state region of nuclei

Using the nuclei in the nuclear table as members of an ensemble of hamiltonianas we show that, once nuclei with a systematic behaviour are eliminated, the nearest-neighbour spacings between states with the same spin and parity follow, in the ground state region, a distribution which is roughly consistent with that predicted by the gaussian orthogonal ensemble (GOE). These is some indication, which however is not conclusive, that the two-body random hamiltonian ensemble fits the data somewhat better than the GOE.