How come protons within atoms aren’t constantly repelling each other?
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They are. But there’s a stronger force holding them together. It’s called… “The Strong Force”. Physicists aren’t great with names.
More precisely, it’s called the “strong nuclear force”, and it does exactly what it says on the tin, it holds nuclei together, even though the electric charge of the protons constantly tries to force the nucleus apart.
It does this with an interaction between the quarks that make up the protons and neutrons. Basically, they all have special particles that they constantly pass between each other, (these are virtual pions and others) and when one of them tries to push away, that passing action pulls it back together.
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