Question

Find the angle between the two hands of a clock when the time shown by the clock

Answer 1

Let’s look at this in a simple way. A clock is a circle. A circle is 360 degrees. There are 12 numbers on that clock to represent hours. Dividing 360 by 12 is 30. So to speak, this means ever hour interval on the clock takes up 30 degrees.

At 5:30, the hour hand is exactly halfway between 5 and 6. Half of the degrees between 5 and 6 is 15.

At 5:30, the minute hand is on 6. Therefore, we are looking for the minute difference in degrees between a minute hand on 6 and an hour hand 15 degrees away from 6.

Therefore, the answer is 15 degrees.