Solution:

Let A be the feet and B be the inches of length I asked for

Converting feet into inches,
We can say that I asked for (12*A + B) inches

According to the question
My wife interchanged the feet and inches
Which means that I got B feet and A inches of length
Or (12*B + A) inches of length

Now as per the details given in the question

(5/8) * (12*A+B) = (12*B + A)

A = (91/52) B

Now B is the variable for inches thus it must be something between 1 and 12 only and A must be a whole number.

In such case, putting B as 4 is the only possible way that it can stand true.

Thus A = (91/52) 4
Or A = 7.

Thus I asked for 7 feet and 4 inches of Ribbon and my wife brought me 4 feet and 7 inches instead.

Solution:

Everyone will appoint any one person as a leader. Now everyone must follow some steps. Every prisoner will flip the first switch up at the first opportunity and also at the second opportunity. If the first switch is already up or they have flipped it up two times already, then they will flip the second switch. The leader however will have a different routine. He is the only one who will flip the switch down the first switch. Suppose if the switch is already down, he will flip the second switch. Also he will keep a count and when he has flipped the first switch down 44 times, he will declare that every prisoner has visited the room.

This is because once the leader has flipped down the switch 44 times, he will know that everyone has visited the room. If the switch was down initially, the other 22 prisoners will turn it up two times. If the first switch was already up, there will be one prisoner who will flip the switch up only once and the rest will do it twice.

Now this trick won't work when the leader has flipped the switch 23 times. Consider the fact that it is possible that 12 prisoners randomly and the leader have been taken to the switch room 24 times and the rest have not been taken till then. Remember that the first switch might have been up in the beginning itself. Thus the prisoners must flip the switch up twice. If they do it just once, the leader will never know whether to count till 22 or 23.

Solution:

Were you thinking of using the fastest person who takes one minute to travel to and fro till everyone has reached the other end? Yes that can be done but it will take 10 + 1 + 7 + 1 + 2 = 21 minutes in total.

If we pay attention towards finding a way to merge the one taking 7 minutes and the one taking 10 minutes, we will have to acknowledge the fact that one of them will also have to return back which will take much more time than 21 minutes.

What if we use the person taking 2 minutes to escort the one taking 1 minutes across? Let's come to the conclusion:

1 and 2 cross the bridge
2 returns with the torch
7 and 10 cross the bridge
1 comes back
1 and 2 cross the bridge

In such a manner, the total time taken will be
2 + 2 + 10 + 1 + 2 = 17 minutes.

Solution:

John starts after 3 days, thus Peter has already covered 60 km by then (travelling at 20km a day)
The distance between Peter and John will be increased to 60 + 5 + 1 = 66 km in the next two days.

Since John is following an arithmetic progression in the speed daily, the distance between him and peter will keep on decreasing from the 6th day. It will decrease by 3 km on the first day, 7 km on the next day and so on.

Now John will catch up with Peter after n + 5 days from the start of Peter
Thus
66 = (n/2)*(2*3 + (n-1)*4)

If we solve for n in the above equation, we will get n = 5.5

Thus John will catch up with Peter on the eights day when he starts running after Peter.

Solution:

The passenger will occupy three seats, per head payable amount will be 26.89.

80.67 rupees cannot be divided by 3.

Thus the number of occupied seats will be 3.
And unoccupied seats = 40-3 = 37.