Mark Mikamoto

Math 143-001
Presentation 1
"Clocked" from P.149
Problem - "When my son was born, my wife and I agreed that if he woke up
before 5 am, she would go and feed him, but after 5am, I was to go and bring
him into our bed. One night when he woke up, my wife looked at the clock in
the dark and said it was my turn. Surprised, since it seemed rather dark, I
nevertheless acquiesced. Later it turned out that my wife had looked at the
clock upside down, and mistaken 12:30 for 6:00. When will the hands of an
upside-down clock show a proper clock time?"
In this problem, our objective is to find out the proper clock time when the
analog clock is upside down. What it means by the "proper clock time" is that
both short hand and long hand are at proper places as if they were right-side
up. For example, when the clock is 7:00 when it is right side up, it would look
like 5:30 when you flip it upside-down. But, we cannot say that this is proper
clock time since when the long hand is at 30 minutes point, short hand has to
be at half way point between 5 and 6 if the clock was right side up. Therefore,
we can say that upside down time of 7:30 is not proper time.
Proper clock time - in this question, proper clock time means that when the
clock is upside-down both short and long hands are placed at proper place as
they are right-side up. For example, when the clock is 6:00 right side up and
when you flip the clock upside down, it is going to look like 12:30. However,
when it is really 12:30, short hand should be at the halfway point between 12
and 1, so we can say that the clock is not proper time.

You can place both short and long hand anywhere, and it will never show the
proper clock time because when the clock is right side up and when the long
hand moves 360 degrees clockwise, short hand moves towards the next
number. But when you flip the clock upside down and when you look at the
long hand move clockwise, short hand will move opposite direction from
when it was right-side up. So when the long hand is anywhere on right half
of the clock, short hand will be closer to the number that would be upcoming
hour, and when the long hand is anywhere on the left half, short hand will be
closer to the number that would be current hour.