Find the Next Number in the Sequence

2 9 3 1 8 4 3 6 5 7 ?

You and your two friends are working in a multinational company. How can you three find out the average salary of you all without disclosing your own salary to the other two?

You are provided with a grid (as shown in the picture). Can you fill the squares with numbers 1-8 in a manner that none of the two consecutive numbers are placed next to each other in any direction (vertically, horizontally or diagonally?)

There are four people in a house. A fireman, an athlete, an old woman, and a drunk guy. The house catches fire and before the fact is known, it is too late. All they know is that the entire house is in flames and it will collapse exactly after twelve minutes. Now they can move out of the house but for that, they will have to pass the hallway which is entirely blazing with flames. Thus to move, one must carry a fire extinguisher to keep the flames away. Seeking the burnt wooden floor, only two people can run through that hallway at one time. But for others to go, one must return back with the fire extinguisher. The fireman is trained for such tasks and can run through the hallway in a minute. The athlete can make it in a couple of minutes. The old woman can run slowly and will cover the hallway in four minutes. The drunk guy will take five minutes to run through it. If all of them can make it through the hallway in twelve minutes, all of them will be saved. When two move together, they will run at the speed of the slower ones.

How will all four of them manage to run to safety?

If we tie a Sheep to one peg, a circled grass is been eaten by the Sheep. If we tie the Sheep to two pegs with a circle on its neck, then an eclipse is eaten out of the grass by the Sheep. If we want an eclipse then we put two pegs and then put a rope in between them and the other end of the rope is tied up on the Sheep's neck.

How should we tie the peg and the Sheep so that a square is eaten out from the garden grass? We only have one Sheep rope and the peg and the rings.

James Bond is caught up in a mysterious scenario where the evil villain has him blindfolded. He somehow breaks through the handcuffs but is unable to get the blindfold off. Upon searching, he comes across a bow and 3 arrows. He can hear the villain speak, and thus tries to take a shot at him. He launches the first arrow, it misses the villain. He then launches the second arrow and it misses by a greater margin.

What is the probability that this third shot our James bond takes will be worse than the second shot?

I have Rs.50 and I spend it in the way as below.

There were five men at church, and it started raining while they were outside. The four that ran still got wet, but the one that was still stayed completely dry. Why did he stay dry?

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.

Find the next number in the series

12, 20, 40, 72, 116, 172 ?