Randomness and collectivity in nuclear structure: Three theoretical puzzles

We show and interpret three examples of nontrivial results obtained in numerical simulations of many-body systems: exponential convergence of low-lying energy eigenvalues in the process of progressive truncation of huge shell-model matrices, apparently ordered spectra generated by random interactions, and regular behavior of complex many-body energies in a system with single-particle orbitals in continuum. The possible practical applications and new approaches are suggested.