It's useful in the liquid drop model to think of the nucleus as being composed of a multitude of discrete particles. With each particle being an incompressible

It's useful in the liquid drop model to think of the nucleus as being composed of a multitude of discrete particles. With each particle being an incompressible sphere, the strength of nuclear bonding makes sense as close nucleons interact strongly with eachother while more distant nuclei have weaker interactions, or beyond a certain point no interation, while their electromagnetic charges are not so hindered. It also scales up well for neutron stars, explaining why neutron star density matches nuclear density - in both cases it's just a bunch of piled up nucleons. Isomers make sense as different arrangements of the nucleons, and you can get some isomers with really funky geometries like halo nuclei.