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 gave half of the apples he had plus one more to Jacob. He gave half of the remaining ones plus one more to James. Now, John was left with just one apple.

Can you find out how many did he have in the beginning?

I am the one who remains awake when you sleep. But I need to rest when you awake. Who Am I?

I went to the bookshop and spent one-half of the money that was in my purse.

When I came out, I found that I had as many cents as I had dollars and half as many dollars as I had cents when I went in. Find the money in my purse when I entered the store.

A charming young lady was approached by a kind looking old woman in a restaurant. The old woman said to her, 'You look exactly like my younger daughter. Sadly she passed away a couple of months back. Could you do me a favor and say 'Goodbye, mother' with a kind smile on your face when I leave?

The young lady agreed for the same and said, 'Goodbye, mother' when the old woman left. Soon after, she got the most disengaging shock of her life.

Can you guess what the shock was?

Replace the 'X' with any mathematical symbol to make the expression equal to 111.

18 X 12 X 2 X 3 = 111

Find a 9-digit number, which you will gradually round off starting with units, then tenth, hundred etc., until you get to the last numeral, which you do not round off. The rounding alternates (up, down, up ...). After rounding off 8 times, the final number is 500000000. The original number is commensurable by 6 and 7, all the numbers from 1 to 9 are used, and after rounding four times the sum of the not-rounded numerals equals 24.

There are 2 people near the river and both of them want to get on the other side. The boat can only take one of them. But they got across.
How?

You have two strings whose only known property is that when you light one end of either string it takes exactly one hour to burn. The rate at which the strings will burn is completely random and each string is different.

How do you measure 45 minutes?

2 ladies and 2 girls need to cross a river in a boat big enough for 1 LADY or 2 girls. How do they do it?