w hether or not we have free will is a question philosophers have been debating for millennia. In the early 1980s, there was a brief moment when it appeared the debate may finally have been settled. T

Picture the scene: you’re about to get up on stage to give a presentation or performance. Something feels off – you look down, and realise your shirt is missing; in fact, you have no clothes on at all

Amazing answers to your curious questions

When James Watson died on 6th November last year at the age of 97, he was survived by a wife, two sons and a severely tarnished reputation. Watson was one of the world’s most famous scientists, having

“There must have been a conspiracy,” says the novelist William Boyd, after describing John F Kennedy’s assassination to me. He cites the usual clues—the film shot by Abraham Zapruder, the entry wounds

“Johannes Vermeer is the most laconic of the Dutch old masters,” Andrew Graham-Dixon once remarked, adding that this “may explain why he has been the cause of so much volubility in others”. A quarter