Two More Hours
A man woke up in a hotel while traveling. His room was still dim.
He looked at the clock and thought, “Only five. We’re meeting at seven, so I can sleep for two more hours.”
But just as he was about to go back to sleep, he glanced at the clock again and jumped out of bed in a panic.
He hurriedly got dressed and rushed out of the room.
Why did he panic?
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Hints
Use as many hints as you need, one at a time.
Hint 1
The clock was not broken. It showed the correct time and was working normally.
Hint 2
The reason lies in how the man was seeing the clock, not in the clock itself.
Hint 3
The second hand appeared to move in the opposite direction from usual.
Check the Answer
Answer
He had been looking at the clock’s reflection in a mirror.
Seeing the second hand move the wrong way, he realized it was a reflection. The real time was not five but seven—the time he was supposed to meet the others.
Explanation
The minute hand pointed to twelve and the hour hand to seven.
A mirror reverses the clock face from left to right. The minute hand still appeared to point to twelve, but the hour hand appeared to point to five, so he thought it was five o’clock.
It was his first stay at the hotel. The room was dim, and he was still groggy, so he mistook the reflected clock for one he was looking at directly.
When he glanced again, he noticed that the second hand appeared to move counterclockwise rather than clockwise.
He realized he was looking at a reflection. It was already seven. Instead of having two hours before the meeting, he had reached the meeting time, so he rushed out.
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