Notebooks · posts/wigner-semicircle

The eigenvalues of a random matrix fill Wigner's semicircle

Adam Zettel · September 21, 2026 · written with an agent

Fill a symmetric $200 \times 200$ matrix with independent random numbers, divide by $N$ , and look at its eigenvalues. They do not scatter. They fill the semicircle $\frac{1}{2 π} 4 - x^{2}$ , whatever distribution the entries came from.

ρ (λ) = \frac{1}{2 π σ ^{2}} 4 σ^{2} - λ^{2}, ∣ λ ∣ \leq 2 σ

Only the entries' variance matters; these are uniform on $[- 3, 3]$ , which has variance 1 and looks nothing like a Gaussian. The even moments of the semicircle are the Catalan numbers $1, 2, 5, \dots$ because $\frac{1}{N} Tr H^{2 k}$ counts closed walks that never cross themselves. The tests check the second, fourth and sixth moments (1, 2 and 5), and that no eigenvalue lies beyond $\pm 2.1$ .

At $N = 200$ the program runs in your browser in about a tenth of a second. The post also shows a recorded run of the same program at $N = 2000$ (the large setting), compiled to C and run natively; the Jacobi eigensolver costs $O (N^{3})$ per sweep, so that run takes minutes. Its histogram is smoother, and its largest eigenvalue in absolute value is $1.996$ .

Look inside this program

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Shift+Enter in a cell runs it and moves to the next. Running a cell runs every cell above it too, as one program.

[1]lines 24–80

pi = 3.141592653589793
N = 200
BINS = 20

srand(7.0)
A = zeros(N, N)
for i to N {
    for j to i + 1.0 {
        v = sqrt(3.0) * (2.0 * rand() - 1.0) / sqrt(N)
        A[i, j] = v
        A[j, i] = v
    }
}
eigs = zeros(N)
vecs = zeros(N, N)
eig_sym(A, eigs, vecs)

second = sum(eigs * eigs) / N
fourth = sum(pow(eigs, 4.0)) / N
edge = max(abs(eigs))
sixth = sum(pow(eigs, 6.0)) / N
show second
show fourth
show edge

# a histogram on [-2.2, 2.2], as a density, beside the semicircle
centers = linspace(-2.2 + 2.2 / BINS, 2.2 - 2.2 / BINS, BINS)
width = 4.4 / BINS
density = zeros(BINS)
for i to N {
    b = floor((eigs[i] + 2.2) / width)
    if b >= 0.0 and b < BINS {
        density[b] = density[b] + 1.0 / (N * width)
    }
}
semicircle = sqrt(max(4.0 - centers * centers, 0.0)) / (2.0 * pi)

figure("Eigenvalues of one N x N random symmetric matrix", "eigenvalue", "density")
plot(centers, density, "histogram")
plot(centers, semicircle, "semicircle")

test "the second moment is 1: the first Catalan number" {
    assert_near(second, 1.0, 0.05)
}
test "the fourth moment is 2: the second" {
    assert_near(fourth, 2.0, 0.15)
}
test "the sixth moment is 5: the third" {
    # the fourth moment's 7.5% allowance, since the finite-N error grows with the power
    assert_near(sixth, 5.0, 0.375)
}
test "nothing escapes the edge at 2 by more than a tenth" {
    assert_lt(edge, 2.1)
}

# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT OR Apache-2.0
# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 The Viv authors

pi = 3.141592653589793
N = 200
BINS = 20

srand(7.0)
A = zeros(N, N)
for i to N {
    for j to i + 1.0 {
        v = sqrt(3.0) * (2.0 * rand() - 1.0) / sqrt(N)
        A[i, j] = v
        A[j, i] = v
    }
}
eigs = zeros(N)
vecs = zeros(N, N)
eig_sym(A, eigs, vecs)

second = sum(eigs * eigs) / N
fourth = sum(pow(eigs, 4.0)) / N
edge = max(abs(eigs))
sixth = sum(pow(eigs, 6.0)) / N
show second
show fourth
show edge

# a histogram on [-2.2, 2.2], as a density, beside the semicircle
centers = linspace(-2.2 + 2.2 / BINS, 2.2 - 2.2 / BINS, BINS)
width = 4.4 / BINS
density = zeros(BINS)
for i to N {
    b = floor((eigs[i] + 2.2) / width)
    if b >= 0.0 and b < BINS {
        density[b] = density[b] + 1.0 / (N * width)
    }
}
semicircle = sqrt(max(4.0 - centers * centers, 0.0)) / (2.0 * pi)

figure("Eigenvalues of one N x N random symmetric matrix", "eigenvalue", "density")
plot(centers, density, "histogram")
plot(centers, semicircle, "semicircle")

test "the second moment is 1: the first Catalan number" {
    assert_near(second, 1.0, 0.05)
}
test "the fourth moment is 2: the second" {
    assert_near(fourth, 2.0, 0.15)
}
test "the sixth moment is 5: the third" {
    # the fourth moment's 7.5% allowance, since the finite-N error grows with the power
    assert_near(sixth, 5.0, 0.375)
}
test "nothing escapes the edge at 2 by more than a tenth" {
    assert_lt(edge, 2.1)
}

# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT OR Apache-2.0
# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 The Viv authors