Stephen Hawking is to feature on Pink Floyd’s new album The Endless River.

The 72-year-old physicist’s voice is sampled on a track called “Talkin’ Hawkin’”, which uses his synthesised voice from a 1994 British Telecom advert.

The song is not intended as a sequel to Pink Floyd’s 1994 track “Keep Talking”, which also samples Hawking from the same commercial.

Guitarist David Gilmour said he originally chose to use Hawking in “Keep Talking” after the advert brought him close to tears.

“I don’t think he even wrote the words that they used with him, but…he was in it, in his wheelchair,” he said in a radio interview in 1994.

“He looks kind of strange. And I just found it so moving that I felt that I had to try and do something with it, or with him or something, in some way.”

The Endless River also includes 12 tracks written or co-written by the late Richard Wright, many of which were drawn from sessions recorded with Wright in 1993. The band has confirmed that it will be the last music they release.

Gilmore recently said the album was intended as a tribute to Wright, who died of cancer in 2008 aged 65.