Protons and neutrons are not what you think. They are not simple spherical ‘balls’ as most suspect.
Protons and nucleons are actually comprised of dense cloud of particles (both real and virtual) keyed to a deeply attractive, void-like center perpetuating the swarm as the following passage from Fritjof Capra’s book the Tao of Physics succinctly describes.
“nucleons are, in fact, emitting and absorbing virtual particles all the time. According to field theory, they have to be regarded as centers of continuous activity surrounded by clouds of virtual particles”
And though we tend to associate chaos with the term swarm, the relationships amongst subatomic particles is in fact highly organized and symmetrical. Known as Meson symmetry, the accompanying diagrams depicts the dualistically arranged almost fulcrum-like arrangement of particles about their center.
It’s interesting to note the Meson Symmetry figure closely resembles Taoism’s I Ching symbol intended to represent the natural order of things which, incredibly enough was developed thousands of years before the tools of science were sophisticated enough to detect the minute details of subatomic particles!