Clarification/Follow-up by IQGuru on 12/03/05 8:32 am:
It should be noted that it is unclear WHAT distance is being asked for in this problem!

In my original ansser, my bracketed comments refer to the cicumferential distances traveled by the tips of the HOUR and MINUTE hands, respectively, between their beginning and ending postions.

In the case of the hour hand, my answer and the rotational distanceare are identical...

But in the case of the minute hand (as also noticed by Jim McGinness) the rotational TRAVEL distance does NOT equal the final POSITION difference stated, since it iqnores 9 revolutions. But worse, the LENGTH of the MINUTE hand is also unknown, so the actual cicumference of its tip's circle, and thus its 'travel distance', is actually indeterminate! These are precisely
the reasons WHY I put ny original comments concering the MINUTE hand in brackets!...

Returning to the unclear nature of this question: It could also be that the distance sought is the straight line distance between the beginning and ending points of the HOUR HAND tip! In that case, the distance would be SqRt[2(12)^2] = ~ 16.97056 cm.

Warm regards again,
"IQ"