Problem Statement

A particular activity of bats occurs at these times of the day: Using the idea that there are twenty-four hours in a day, which is analogous to there being 360 degrees in a circle, map times of day to and from angles; and using the ideas of Averages/Mean angle compute and show the average time of the nocturnal activity to an accuracy of one second of time.

Let's start with the solution:

meanAngle(v)=atan(sum(i=1,#v,sin(v[i]))/sum(i=1,#v,cos(v[i])))%(2*Pi)
meanTime(v)=my(x=meanAngle(2*Pi*apply(u->u[1]/24+u[2]/1440+u[3]/86400, v))*12/Pi); [x\1, 60*(x-=x\1)\1, round(60*(60*x-60*x\1))]
meanTime([[23,0,17], [23,40,20], [0,12,45], [0,17,19]])