What is the next number in this series?

4,12,84,3612....

There is a river to cross using a river raft and there are eight people (father, mother, policeman, thief, 2 daughters and 2 sons). No one knows to operate the raft except the adults and also excluding the thief. Only two people can go in the raft at a time. The raft should keep coming back and forth in order to pick and drop the people.
Rules to be followed:
Father: the father cannot stay in the raft or outside the raft without the presence of the mother.
Mother: the mother cannot stay in the raft or outside the rat without the presence of the father.
Thief: the thief is not allowed to stay with any of the family members unless there is a policeman.
Policeman: the policeman can travel with anyone.
2 sons and 2 daughters: they are not allowed to travel in the raft without the presence of an adult. They cannot either travel in the presence of only thieves without the policeman. The sons cannot be with their mothers without their father's supervision. The daughters are not allowed to be there with their fathers without the supervision of their mothers. But the daughters and the sons can be left unsupervised (as long as the other rules are applied).
What is the sequence that the people should follow in order to cross the river through the raft keeping in mind all the rules?
The rules are applicable not only in the raft but also outside the raft.

Solve the equation by replacing the alphabet with numbers.

MOM + MOM + NO = BOOK=

There were three women in all the swimming costumes!
One was happy and the other two were sad!
The happy one was crying and the sad ones were smiling.
Why was this?

In a guessing game, five friends had to guess the exact numbers of apples in a covered basket.
Friends guessed 22, 24, 29, 33, and 38, but none of the guesses was correct. The guesses were off by 1, 8, 6, 3, and 8 (in random order).

Can you determine the number of apples in a basket from this information?

At a party, there are five people and a whole round cake lying at the centre of the table. Only four people will make a cut and take their piece and the last one will get the remaining piece on the table. How can they make sure that everyone gets a 1/5th of the piece?

Find the next number in the series

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

Two fathers and two sons decided to go to a shop and buy some sweets upon reaching. Each of them bought 1 kg of sweet. All of them returned home after some time and found out that they had 3kg of sweets with them.

They did not eat the sweets in the way, nor threw or lose anything. Then, how can this be possible?

A bridge is about to collapse. There are four people P, Q, R and S on one of the sides. Before the bridge collapses, they want to cross it. Now since the bridge is too weak, it can only stand the weight of two people at a time. Also, it is night time and nothing is visible. They have just one torch with them.

Now P takes one minute to cross the bridge, Q takes two minutes to cross, R takes five minutes to cross and S takes ten minutes to cross.

The bridge will collapse in seventeen minutes. How will they be able to cross the bridge before it collapses?

A boy and his father are caught in a traffic accident, and the father dies. Immediately the boy is rushed to a hospital, suffering from injuries. But the attending surgeon at the hospital, upon seeing the boy, says 'I cannot operate. This boy is my son.' How is this situation explained?