What Are the Forces That Hold It Together?
With each force goes a quantum field theory to describe it (but we don’t yet have a working theory for the oldest known force, gravity).
Each force has a particle associated with it, a gauge boson, that allows the force to act at a distance. For the electromagnetic force the theory is quantum electrodynamics and the gauge boson is the photon.
Nuclear beta decay: n?p e- n
Binds electrons and protons
Holds the nucleus together