After swapping the positions of the hour and the minute hand, when will a clock still give a valid time?

7.5k Views Asked by At

At 12 o'clock, the hour hand and minute hand of the clock can be swapped, and the clock still gives the same time, but at 6 o'clock, it can not be swapped. So in what cases when we swap the hour and the minute hand position does a clock still give a valid time?

valid invalid

1

There are 1 best solutions below

5
On BEST ANSWER

Let $x$ be the position of the hour hand, as measured in degrees clockwise from 12 o'clock. So, for example, at 1 o'clock, $x=30$. Let $y$ be the position of the minute hand; then $y\equiv12x\pmod{360}$, because the minute hand spins 12 times as fast as the hour hand. In order for $(y,x)$ to be a valid pair of positions for (hour hand, minute hand), we must also have $x\equiv12y\pmod{360}$. Putting these together, we get $x\equiv144x\pmod{360}$, which is $143x\equiv0\pmod{360}$, which has the solutions $x=0,360/143,720/143,1080/143,\dots$.

$x=360/143$ is $12\times360/143=30.20979\dots$ minutes past 12 o'clock; 30 minutes, 12 and four-sevenths seconds after 12 o'clock. And then any integer multiple of that will do.

EDIT: As Henry points out in a comment, the 2nd paragraph contains an error. $x=360/143$ is $12\times360/143=30.20979\dots$ degrees past 12 o'clock, but it is $2\times360/143$ minutes past 12, which is (as Henry says) 5 minutes, $2{14\over143}$ seconds after 12.