Ever diminishing distance

[Driller]

Another little thing like the speed of light thing that has been driving me mad:

Take 2 objects and bring them progressively closer together by halving the distance between them.

In my mind this can literally go on forever because however far away something is, if you approach at half this distance you can’t touch it.

My apologies if this now drives someone else bonkers but also for not understanding the pragmatic scientific explanations that will surely follow.

[Driller]

I’m talking about just halving the distance ie moving in steps. So they never actually touch then?

I have a headache

[Driller]

Toltec said:

Driller said:

I’m talking about just halving the distance ie moving in steps. So they never actually touch then?

I have a headache

Eventually they will be less than a planck length apart, you'll have fun moving half of that. Well before then you will be at a scale where the surfaces cease to become easily definable in relation the the nominal distance apart. As a simple analogy how difficult would it be to tell if two peoples heads were touching if their hair was considered part of their heads. Add a static charge to one persons hair to make it even more interesting.

Don't worry, we can still mould things to keep the headache going: when the objects get that close then you consider the 2 closest molecules, then atoms, down to the smallest existing particle