Why don't electrons and protons ever crash into eachother?

Question

since they are oppositely charged, wouldn't they smash into eachother...yet as far as I know they don't touch

Answer 1

Newton's physics does not apply to items as small as sub-atomic particles (which seem to be particles in name only).

Quantum mechanics, not Newtonian mechanics, rule the sub-atimic realm. Electrons have a high degree of wave-like properties. They are best thought of as clouds, not little round balls of matter.

If one did accerelate an electron and hurl it at a naked (not associated with another electron) proton, one can get an interaction. Electrons interacting with positrons (as in the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source) is similar.

Answer 2

Sometimes they do. The result is a neutron. A proton and electron, however, have an extremely small collision cross section, and external electrons are nearly always deflected by the electrons already orbiting an atom.

Answer 3

well, they balance each other out. The proton's in the nucleus, the dense part, so it can't.