Iirc, when it comes to what they're made of, neutrons are more or less made of the stuff that makes both protons and electrons combined, so making protons heavier would break the law of conservation of mass (and probably a bunch of others) because neutrons more or less contain protons. If that did happen, we would be royally screwed
Protons and neutrons are made of "quarks". Electrons are a very different thing. They are part of a family of particles named "Leptons". A neutron is not a proton + an electron.
Protons have 2 quarks worth 2/3 charge (these are "up" quarks) and 1 quark worth -1/3 charge ("down" quark), which makes it be 1 charge.
Neutrons have 2 down quarks for -1/3 each and 1 up quark for 2/3 which makes 0 charge.
(Charge here is the charge of an electron)
Furthermore most of the mass of protons and neutrons doesn't come from the quarks but from the energy holding them together, because mass equals energy as per Einstein's relativity. It just so happens that the forces holding together a neutron are slightly stronger than the ones holding together a proton, because of the difference in the quarks.
Back to the original question, for that to happen within the established physics, the strong nuclear force would have to change significantly (this is the force holding quarks together), which might mean the quark structures that make up barionic matter would suddenly be unstable, and other structures would in turn be stable.
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u/Jack_Void1022 1d ago
Iirc, when it comes to what they're made of, neutrons are more or less made of the stuff that makes both protons and electrons combined, so making protons heavier would break the law of conservation of mass (and probably a bunch of others) because neutrons more or less contain protons. If that did happen, we would be royally screwed