His argument about digital watches did not age well. My kids have known how to understand a digital clock since they were toddlers, but even now, in elementary school, they require entire lesson units in school on telling time from a clock face. Beyond that, he argues that pie charts tell us more about the relationship between things than tables of numbers, and a clock face is "the world's most perfect pie chart." Bu…
Sure it does - for example the portion of the hour in front of the minute hand's sweep is "in the future" whereas the portion of the hour behind the minute hand's sweep is "in the past" and the portion of the hour under the minute hand is "now". Three categories, and the distribution of the current hour's minutes between them
You can't get much useful information from the hands' relationship to each other without knowing their relationship to the imaginary up line. If I say, "The hour and minute hands are 30° apart", what does that tell you about the distribution of time into past and future?
The hour hand shows distribution of hours between most recent 12 and next 12 into past and future. The minute hand is an entirely separate chart showing the distribution of minutes in the current hour into past and future.
Trying to read a clock from the frame of a pie chart is kind of confusing though, given this overlap. I don't think I would call it a good pie chart, much less the most perfect one.