What goes up but never comes down?

A non-stop marathon is the shared favourite sport of three brothers.

*The oldest one is fat and short and trudges slowly on.
*The middle brother's tall and slim and keeps a steady pace.
*The youngest runs just like the wind, speeding through the race.

"He is young in years, we let him run!" the other two brothers explained, "'because though he is surely number one, he is second, in a way." Why is it?

Joseph buys three kinds of chocolates for 100 rupees. The first one is priced at 5 rupees, second one at 3 rupees and third one at 0.5 rupees.

If he bought 100 chocolates in total, how many pieces do you think he bought each chocolate?

How far can you walk into the woods?

I am a prime number.
The double of myself is equal to the square of me.

which number am I?

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?

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

I am working in a bus company. The company recently went under expansion and therefore there was not enough room for all the buses. As a result, twelve buses had to be stored outside.

If the company decides to expand the garage space by forty percent, enough space to accommodate the current buses will be created leaving enough space for twelve more buses if the need arises in future.

Can you calculate the number of buses that the company owns at present?

Sherlock breaks into a crime scene. The victim is the owner who is slumped dead on a chair and have a bullet hole in his head. A gun lies on the floor and a cassette recorder is found on the table. On pressing the play button, Sherlock hears the message 'I have committed sins in my life and now I offer my soul to the great Lord' and followed a gunshot Sherlock smiles and informed the police that's its a murder.

Why did he think so?

Your job is to measure 45 minutes if you have only two cords and matches to light the cords.

1. The two cords are twisted from various materials, so their different segments can burn at different rates.
2. Each cord burns from end to end in exactly one hour.

Describe your way of measuring the 45 minutes.