How do you get to 0?

I was thinking about this a while back in my physics class, but how exactly are we able to get to 0? I mean if we were trying to touch an object that wasn't moving, and gradually moved closer to it, how would we touch it? Where's the limit between 0 and 0.0000000000000000000000000001? Do we ever actually touch the object, or do we have some weird rounding feature in our head that lets us skip over the infintely smaller values and feel the object? Is there ever 0 distance between two objects? Do we even need to be at 0 distance to touch an object?

Don't over think thinks...
Just live and enjoy your life.

[color="#cc8899"]You don't ever actually touch an object, you simply come into contact with the particles that surround it.
To truly answer your question, however, no, we do not ever truly touch any other object. The differences simply become inconsequential, to the point that it would require absurd amounts of technology even by today's standards to see.[/COLOR]

I am not a scientist, but I suspect the answer has something to do with atoms and such. I guess the nuclei can't come into contact so I guess the distance never reaches 0? But what if you measure distance by electron orbits intead? I dunno if the concept of distance is well-defined at such microscopic levels. For practical purposes, if objects are touching, there's 0 distance between them.

The distance from the big bang particle to the big bang particle was 0. In fact it was so close that all the forces were merged and atoms could not form.

I am not a scientist, but I suspect the answer has something to do with atoms and such. I guess the nuclei can't come into contact so I guess the distance never reaches 0?

This. If you think about an object, like say a chair. It's mostly empty space. The particles only take a very small fraction of the vacuum. They interact though: They stick together in such a way it gets the chape of a chair. Even your own body is 99% or so vacuum and a small % is matter (you can even debate it is 0%, since particles don't really exist since they're all wavelike, like light, but that would go too far).
When you push something, you come so very close to the object, the particles of your hand are interacting with the particles of the object, simple electromagnetic forces, which get so great at some point they move the whole object, so your hand never touches the object.
If you keep pushing very, VERY hard, untill you overcome the E/M force, and the atoms collide, I guess you'll trigger nuclear fission, but the force would be so great it'll never be possible by human force. (not so sure about this fission part though ^^)

This. If you think about an object, like say a chair. It's mostly empty space. The particles only take a very small fraction of the vacuum. They interact though: They stick together in such a way it gets the chape of a chair. Even your own body is 99% or so vacuum and a small % is matter (you can even debate it is 0%, since particles don't really exist since they're all wavelike, like light, but that would go too far).
When you push something, you come so very close to the object, the particles of your hand are interacting with the particles of the object, simple electromagnetic forces, which get so great at some point they move the whole object, so your hand never touches the object.
If you keep pushing very, VERY hard, untill you overcome the E/M force, and the atoms collide, I guess you'll trigger nuclear fission, but the force would be so great it'll never be possible by human force. (not so sure about this fission part though ^^)

Actually, technically your body is 99.999% empty space. The nucleus of an atom is 10^-13 CM wide, while the electron cloud is 10^-8 cm. In other words, an atom is 5 times the size of the nucleus.

You're not actually sitting in your chair right now. The forces of repulsion created when electrons get close is causing you to hover very slightly above your chair.

There's only one time when the nuclei of atoms touch. It's called fusion

Actually, technically your body is 99.999% empty space. The nucleus of an atom is 10^-13 CM wide, while the electron cloud is 10^-8 cm. In other words, an atom is 5 times the size of the nucleus.

You're not actually sitting in your chair right now. The forces of repulsion created when electrons get close is causing you to hover very slightly above your chair.

There's only one time when the nuclei of atoms touch. It's called fusion

So you basically just said the exact same thing as me lol. Except fusion isntead of fission, whoopsy my bad.

So you basically just said the exact same thing as me lol. Except fusion isntead of fission, whoopsy my bad.

Whoah, I didn't even notice half your post. I thought I was expanding on it, not just repeating it.

We learned all about interactions in chem last year. That's why some things are solids, some liquids, and some gases. If particles didn't interact, everything would be a gas.

^If particles didn't interact? Depends on what particles you mean. If molecules and atoms didn't interact, you'd have a gas. If protons and electrons didn't interact, you'd have a cloud of protons, electrons, and neutrons (and some other stuff), but not even atoms. You can't really call it a gas if there aren't any atoms. If quarks didn't interact, we'd have a cloud of quarks and electrons because quarks bonded together make up protons and neutrons. (And a lot of smaller and larger stuff which doesn't interact in the way we're used to.) There may be stuff even smaller than that, but we can't see it yet. Forgive my fuzzy particle physics, though.

In chemistry, we say that atoms are "bonded" when their electron clouds overlap to a significant degree... That degree, however, is mostly just convention.

Things that aren't bonded together, like your butt and your chair, are even more tenuous, but you do feel the chair underneath you and that's because the atoms of the chair are close enough to interact with your skin, which interacts with your nerves...

Personally I think we should define "touching" more in the biological sense because it's actually a lot more intuitive. I mean, if you feel something, you're touching it. xD;

Anyway, if you're only in a Newtonian mechanics class, none of this really matters. You might as well consider objects to have 0 distance between them, as you can't calculate the distance using the tools you have because a) you don't have enough significant figures, and b) quantum mechanics starts to play a big role. A lot of physics is about ignoring the forces that are too small to matter. That's what I learned in Modern Physics, anyway. =P Taking Quantum in the fall.

EDIT: Anyway, to begin to answer the OP's questions... The only "weird rounding" going on is the limit of how weak a force our nerves react to, and how much our brain is willing to focus on that sensation. Some people have more sensitive fingers than others. You don't need to be "touching" anything in the strong sense you want to feel it... just close enough for the object's electron cloud to interact with your electron cloud. And "0 distance between two objects" would technically make them the same object. o_o Since matter can't overlap and all. In the case of two nuclei, this would mean nuclear fusion...

But if you said to a physicist that Object A and Object B were at 0 distance from each other, the physicist would usually assume that Object A and Object B are two labels for the same object, if the distance refers to the center of mass, or that they are two parts of the same mass, if the labels refer to the "boundary"... whatever that means at 0 distance. Usually we label from the center of mass, so 0 distance doesn't have the meaning I think you want with that system.

In chemistry, aren't forces between atoms or particles defined as interactions? At least what I got out of chem 1 is the term for interactions are the forces of attraction between particles.

Also, something fun to do is put your hand on somebody and jsut say "Chemistry says I'm not touching you."

Also, when somebody is doing something stupid it's fun to say "Physics says you're going to get hurt."