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

A Scientist was fifty years old in the year 2000 but he was forty years old in the year 2010. How can this be possible?

PS: It has a logical answer.

There was a kingdom in which the king had no heir to take over his thrown. Even the queen was dead and he himself was on the verge of dying. He thought about it and then summoned all of the teenagers. He gave one seed each to all of them and asked them to grow the plant. He announced that the one with the most beautiful plant will become the king/queen of the empire after the death of the king.

After a month, all of them were called. The king looked at all of the plants but announced the girl with an empty pot as the queen of the empire. Why?

A boy collects white seashells from the sea and brings them home every night. When he has enough of them, he decides to sell them to a trader.

The trader is ready to buy the shells and he asks the boy about the quantity. At this, the boy starts calculating. He has a giant box that contains 3 mini boxes. Two of them have another mini box inside. If the giant box can hold 50 shells, how many brown shells can he sell to the trader?

What is a word made up of 4 letters, yet is also made up of 3. Sometimes is written with 9 letters, and then with 4. Rarely consists of 6, and never is written with 5.

A man was telling some of his war stories to his grandchildren.
"When the World War I was on the verge of end, I was awarded for my bravery for I had saved a group of my men." He coughed and then added, "When we were fighting in northern France, an enemy soldier threw a grenade at us. Before it could explode, I picked it up and threw it away. For my act of bravery, right before the war ended, A General gave me a sword engraved with the words "Awarded for Display of Bravery and Heroism in World War 1"."

Hearing this, one of the grandson spoke up. "Grandpa, this is not a true story. It can"t be true!"

The truth is that it was not. How did the grand children know it?

You have to put a letter on the following to make it a meaningful word. The only challenge is that you can't use 'E'.

S E Q U E N C _

Manish and Manoj play 5 games of chess.
Both Manish and Manoj win the exact same number of games. There is no tie at all.

How?

In a rainy season, one day 3 huge ladies walked under a normal-sized umbrella.
The umbrella is not huge enough to accommodate all 3 ladies yet not a single lady got wet. Why?

1 + 9 + 8 = ?
considering, 28 + 8 + 92 = 10