A simple program to calculate the difference in degrees between two hands on analog clock. This was a puzzle presented to me, so I thought I'd give it a shot in code.

difference_in_analog_clock_hands.rb

#
# Author: Jim Fisher @jimfish
# Date: March 7th, 2011
# Description: A simple program to calculate the difference in degrees between two hands on analog clock. This was a puzzle presented to me, so I thought I'd give it a shot in code.
# 
def difference_between_hands_on_an_analog_clock_in_degrees(time)
  hours = time.strftime("%l").to_f
  minutes = time.min.to_f
  hratio = 1/12.0
  mratio = 1/60.0
  offset = minutes*mratio*hratio
  (360 * offset + (360*hratio*hours - 360*mratio*minutes)).abs
end

puts "This program will calculate the degrees in difference between the hours and the minute hands on a clock. It includes the movement of the hour hand between the hours while the minute hand moves past the 12."
puts "Enter Hour (1-12)"
hour = gets
puts "Enter Minutes (0-59)"
minutes = gets
time = Time.parse("#{hour}:#{minutes}")
puts difference_between_hands_on_an_analog_clock_in_degrees(time)