Every time I try to understand how forces which hold atoms and molecules together work, I find myself wanting to ask this question: why not the other way around? Could there be an atom which has electrons and neutrons inside, and protons outside?
It feels like a silly question, but is there something we know about the universe we live in that implies that this is not possible?
Electrons are not subject to the strong nuclear force that glues the protons neutrons together. This means that no attractive force would prevent electric repulsion to scatter a “electron nucleus”.
From a field theory perspective, the strong nuclear force is a SU(3) gauge interaction and the electron field transforms as a singlet under that SU(3)