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If X = (𝖬_n(ℝ),‖⋅‖_X) is a unitarily invariant normed space, i.e., ‖𝖴𝖠𝖵‖_X = ‖𝖠‖_X for every matrix 𝖠 ∈ 𝖬_n(ℝ) and every two orthogonal matrices 𝖴,𝖵 ∈ 𝖬_n(ℝ), then we evaluate up to universal constant factors the smallest σ > 0 for which there is a probability distribution over partitions of X into clusters of diameter at most 1 yet for every two matrices 𝖠,𝖡 ∈ 𝖬_n(ℝ) the probability that they fall into distinct clusters is at most σ times the X-distance between 𝖠 and 𝖡. Specifically, we prove that this infimal σ, which is called the separation modulus of X and is denoted SEP(X), satisfies: (1) SEP(X) = Θ(√n⋅ ‖𝖨_n‖_X⋅ diam(B_X)), where 𝖨_n is the n-by-n identity matrix and diam(B_X) is the diameter with respect to the standard Euclidean metric on 𝖬_n(ℝ) of the unit ball B_ X of X. Our proof of (1) proceeds through an asymptotic evaluation of the spectral gap of the Laplacian with Dirichlet boundary conditions on B_ X, which we achieve by exact computations for a Jacobi orthogonal random matrix ensemble. Assuming oracle access to norm evaluations in X, by combining (1) with a new deterministic algorithm for a O(1)-approximation of the diameter of convex bodies in ℝⁿ that are given by a weak membership oracle and are symmetric with respect to coordinate permutations and reflections about the standard axes (this task is famously known to be impossible in the absence of such symmetries), we get an oracle polynomial time algorithm whose output is the separation modulus of X up to universal constant factors. Another example of a consequence of (1) is that for each m ∈ {1,…,n} the separation modulus of the m'th Ky Fan norm on 𝖬_n(ℝ) is bounded from above and from below by universal constant multiples of m√n if m ⩾ √n, and of n if m ⩽ √n. We also deduce from (1) an upper bound on the Lipschitz extension modulus of X that improves over the previously best-known bound even in the special case when X is 𝖬_n(ℝ) equipped with the 𝓁₂ⁿ → 𝓁₂ⁿ operator norm.