2, 3, 5, 9, 17, _ What is the next number in the sequence?

A famous swimmer can swim downstream in a lake in exactly 40 minutes with the lake current.
He can swim upstream in that lake in exactly 60 minutes against the lake current.
The length of the lake is 2 km.

How long he can cover the distance of one side at a still lake with no current?

One fine day, an intellectual man came to the emperor's court with the aim of testing Birbal's wittiness. In order to do this, he challenged Birbal to answer his question and hence prove that he was as intelligent and witty as he was said to be.
He asked Birbal, Do you want me to ask one difficult question or a hundred easy ones?
Since both Akbar and Birbal had had a tough day and were eager to leave, Birbal hastily told the intellectual to ask him a single difficult question.
Intellectual: OK. Tell me what came first into the world, the egg or the chicken?
Of course, the chicken, Birbal replied with a smile.
This time with a note of victory in his voice, the intellectual asked Birbal, How will you demonstrate that?
What did Birbal say?

John drives to his office at 20km/hr. After reaching the office, he realizes that today is a holiday. He went back at an average speed of 30km/hr. Discounting the time spent in the stoppage what was the average speed of his journey?

The pound is not a finish.

We are sharing a few instructions below, which you have to use in any suitable order to modify the above sentence such that the end sentence is a scientific fact.

- Eliminate a letter and supplement another in its place.
- Take away one word.
- Remove one letter from one word.
- Get rid of two letters from one word.
- Swap a word with its antonym.

John buys rice at Rs.60/kg from Britain and then sells them at Rs.5/kg in India. As a result of this, he becomes a millionaire. How come?

John was driving a bus and got stuck when passing through an underpass. Then came Jacob with a needle and got the bus out of the underpass.

What did the boy do?

You’ll find me on Mercury, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. But never Neptune, or Venus. What am I?

What mathematical symbol can be put between 5 and 9, to get a number bigger than 5 and smaller than 9?

What kind of band never plays music?