# What is the speed of the minute hand on a clock?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 11, 2004, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672 "2004-03-11T08:46:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Blayvis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blayvis)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/1 "2004-03-11T08:46:02Z")
You can never seem to see the minute hand move. I was looking at my clock the other day and figured i’d ask the Straight Dope board about the speed of the minute hand… So, get to it. 🆒
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### Author:  [@dnooman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dnooman)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/2 "2004-03-11T08:55:07Z")
Is it .016666… rpm? Maybe I did the math wrong. One sixtieth of an RPM, sixty times slower than the 1 RPM of the second hand.
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### Author:  [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/3 "2004-03-11T08:55:57Z")
One revolution per hour.
Seriously, that is the only meaningful way you can assign a speed to a generic minute hand. The linear speed of the minute hand is different depending on where along it’s length you’d like to measure, and how long it is. A long minute hand on a big clock will have a much higher speed than a small minute hand on a watch.
If you really want the speed of the minute hand of specific time piece then work out the circumferance of the clock face. The speed is that distance per hour.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/4 "2004-03-11T09:05:10Z")
Find a clock with a really large face (i.e. one that has really long hands) and you’ll be able to see the tip of the minute hand moving quite easily.
The speed of the tip of the minute hand is:
(2_pi_r)/360 metres per second, where r is the distance in metres from the tip of the minute hand to the centre of the hub (I was going to just say the ‘length’ of the minute hand, but sometimes it extends on both sides of the hub for balance).
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/5 "2004-03-11T09:14:05Z")
Hmmm… I just plugged some real numbers into that calculation and the answer was clearly wrong.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/6 "2004-03-11T09:15:08Z")
What a plank!
(2_pi_r)/360 **0** metres per second!
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/7 "2004-03-11T09:19:13Z")
So, for my wristwatch, which has an 11mm (0.011 m) minute hand, the speed of the tip is
(2_pi_0.011)/3600 = approximately 0.00002 metres per second or 0.02 (1/50th) millimetres per second.
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### Author:  [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/8 "2004-03-11T10:49:15Z")
The minute hand on the Big Ben clock is about 4 m long. Plugging that number into **Mangetout** ’s formula gives a tip speed of about 0.007 m/s, or 7 mm/s, or 0.025 km/h.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/9 "2004-03-11T11:43:40Z")
It is probably a good thing, on the whole, that I don’t work for NASA.
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### Author:  [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/10 "2004-03-11T11:48:32Z")
Not to mention that with a lot of clocks it is exactly zero, _most of the time_.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/11 "2004-03-11T11:49:12Z")
Of course, tthen you get the clock makers who do not simply let the minute hand move continuously, letting it sit still, then jerking forward once each minute. Which speed do you measure there? (I’d go for 1 rph.)
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/12 "2004-03-11T12:21:49Z")
Even on watches where the minute hand ‘ticks’, the average speed over the whole hour is going to be the same formula - it has to be.
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### Author:  [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/13 "2004-03-11T12:24:11Z")
> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> It is probably a good thing, on the whole, that I don’t work for NASA.
Why? It took you about 10 minutes to test the formula and correct it. It’s not like you caused a space probe to crash into Mars, or anything.
> [@](#):
>
> [NASA’s metric confusion caused Mars orbiter loss](http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric/)
>
> “The problem here was not the error, it was the failure of NASA’s systems engineering, and the checks and balances in our processes to detect the error. That’s why we lost the spacecraft.”
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### Author:  [@aerodave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aerodave)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/14 "2004-03-11T12:42:37Z")
it’s **2\*pi/hr**
as in “2 pi _radians_ per hour”
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### Author:  [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/15 "2004-03-11T12:46:05Z")
OK, now that the question is answered, let’s have some fun…
How fast does the minute indicator on my watch move?
Datum: I have a digital watch… 😃
ducks and runs
Dani
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### Author:  [@dakravel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dakravel)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/16 "2004-03-11T23:41:19Z")
Or how about, how long would the minute hand have to be such that the very tip of the minute hand was moving at the speed of light?
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2004, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/17 "2004-03-12T01:03:46Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Or how about, how long would the minute hand have to be such that the very tip of the minute hand was moving at the speed of light?
At 669,600,000 miles per hour, using 3.14159265 as pi, it would need to be 213,140,300.032+ miles long. Of course, since the tip would be moving at the speed of light while the axis was stationary, we would run into a bit of a problem in which the tip and axis had not experienced the same hour.
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### Author:  [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2004, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/18 "2004-03-12T01:13:43Z")
Hello all.
The above made me think of a question I’ve had for a long while. If you shrunk yourself down so much in scale that the minute hand just looked to you like it was that long (213,140,300.032+ miles) would you measure the speed as the speed of light? Or does relativity jump in?
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### Author:  [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2004, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/19 "2004-03-12T01:14:56Z")
The next logical question is how fast does hair grow, in miles per hour?
(Answers in KPH are acceptable if you are **Mangetout**.)
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### Author:  [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2004, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-speed-of-the-minute-hand-on-a-clock/233672/20 "2004-03-12T01:24:23Z")
> [@manson1972](#):
>
> Hello all.
> The above made me think of a question I’ve had for a long while. If you shrunk yourself down so much in scale that the minute hand just looked to you like it was that long (213,140,300.032+ miles) would you measure the speed as the speed of light? Or does relativity jump in?
Relativity doesn’t work that way. If you made yourself smaller then your watch hand may appear to be huge, but it would still just be a cm long or so.
You could redefine distance to stay relative to you and then you could say that the watch hand was 213,140,300.032 miles long. But then you’d have to redefine the speed of light to compensate.
The speed of light is not slower for small things.
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