Sherlock Holmes was challenged to make a pre-drawn line smaller without erasing it. He did it in fractions of seconds. How?

Alex is stranded on an island covered in forest.
One day, when the wind is blowing from the west, lightning strikes the west end of the island and sets fire to the forest. The fire is very violent, burning everything in its path, and without intervention the fire will burn the whole island, killing the man in the process.

There are cliffs around the island, so he cannot jump off.

How can the Alex survive the fire? (There are no buckets or any other means to put out the fire)

A four-digit number (not beginning with 0) can be represented by ABCD. There is one number such that ABCD=A^B*C^D, where A^B means A raised to the B power. Can you find it?

I have two coins.
* One of the coins is a faulty coin having a tail on both sides of it.
* The other coin is a perfect coin (heads on side and tail on other).

I blindfold myself and pick a coin and put the coin on the table. The face of the coin towards the sky is the tail.

What is the probability that another side is also tail?

A monk has a very specific ritual for climbing up the steps to the temple. First, he climbs up to the middle step and meditates for 1 minute. Then he climbs up 8 steps and faces east until he hears a bird singing. Then he walks down 12 steps and picks up a pebble. He takes one step up and tosses the pebble over his left shoulder. Now, he walks up the remaining steps three at a time which only takes him 9 paces. How many steps are there?

Different lights make me strange by changing me into different sizes. What am I?

Can you write down eight eights so that they add up to one thousand?

Bobby and Wilbur decided to take their respective car out of the garage and race. None of them cheated and they both stood at the start time and decided to cover a distance in full throttle. The first to reach the mark was to be declared the winner.

Upon reaching the finishing mark, they found out that Bobby's car was 1.2 times faster than Wilbur's. Now, Wilbur had reached the mark about 1 minute and 30 seconds later than Bobby. Bobby's car reached the mark of 60 MPH on average.

Can you calculate the distance between the starting mark and the final mark with the help of the given data?

A girl is twice as old as her brother and half as old as her father. In 50 years, her brother will be half as old as his father. How old is the daughter now?

Mr Black, Mr Gray, and Mr White are fighting in a truel. They each get a gun and take turns shooting at each other until only one person is left. Mr Black, who hits his shot 1/3 of the time, gets to shoot first. Mr Gray, who hits his shot 2/3 of the time, gets to shoot next, assuming he is still alive. Mr White, who hits his shot all the time, shoots next, assuming he is also alive. The cycle repeats. If you are Mr Black, where should you shoot first for the highest chance of survival?