There are two ropes that both take exactly 1 hour to burn from end to end. You are unable to cut the rope. How can you burn the two ropes in a total of 45 minutes?
Start one of the ropes on fire from both ends and the other one from one end. After a half an hour one rope will be completely burnt and the other will be half burnt. At this point you light the final rope from the unlit side and it will take 15 minutes for the remaining half of the rope to burn, for a total of 45 minutes.