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padsley t1_iy73in6 wrote

I'm a nuclear-physics professor and this is an excellent question to which the answer is "maybe but we're still working on it".

Leaving aside the quantum is quantum and is weird aspect, one recent observation in atomic nuclei is that there are short-range correlations within nuclei which mean that this idea that protons and neutrons are effectively not interacting because of the limited orbitals available isn't correct. The extent to which it isn't correct is unclear. There are also other clumps of nuclear matter which can form within nuclei. This means that the distinctiveness of individual protons and neutrons is a bit hard to fathom.

Anyway, this was probably unhelpful but I think that the answer is a solid "maybe" (but one based on a lot of semantics and interpretation).

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rootofallworlds t1_iyas0xq wrote

Question. Do the (valence) quarks in a proton or neutron in a nucleus stay part of that one proton/neutron? Or is there exchange of quarks between protons and neutrons? (Or is it unknown? Or is the question meaningless?)

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