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This post contains 3 questions but they are very similar.

I saw from this question What's inside a proton? and other websites that protons aren't really made up of three quarks, but a lot of quarks are constantly created and annihilated, and they make up most of the mass of the proton or neutron. I tried reading the wikipedia page about Gluons, Color Charge, and Strong Interaction, but i couldn't understand at all two things. If there are many more quarks than only the three valence quarks... Why does the electric charge of the proton remain +1? Why is the strong force creating quarks and antiquarks between the quarks, are not only the quarks throwing gluons at each other? Could anyone also explain, why does exchanging gluons, cause quarks to stay together?

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  • $\begingroup$ Veritasium video - Your Mass is NOT From the Higgs Boson! $\endgroup$
    – mmesser314
    Commented Dec 4, 2022 at 2:30
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    $\begingroup$ It's really difficult to reply to this question without knowing the educational background. The real answer lies in modern quantum field theory, specifically qft. In particular, one does not think of a proton as 'composed' of specific particles. Also, note that colour of a quark refers to a choice of basis for $\mathbb{C}^3$. Finally, the `real-life' answer is not fully understood, take a look at parton distribution functions for current research. $\endgroup$
    – SvenForkbeard
    Commented Dec 4, 2022 at 10:17

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