CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY - Stephen Hawking, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, confirmed what anyone who's attempted to read his impenetrable introduction to cosmology has long suspected; that the majority of his multi-million selling book 'A Brief History Of Time' was written whilst the theoretical physicist was "off my wheelchair on magic mushrooms, ketamine, and adult strength benylin."

	The cover of the first edition of 'A Brief History Of Time', shown here alongside Hawking's original concept artwork.

Speaking at a tour to promote the paperback version of "George's Secret Key to the Universe", a kids introduction to science and space written with his daughter Lucy, Hawkins confessed that "My only book that really presents a serious introduction to black holes, light cones, big bangs, and superstring theory is 2002's The Universe In A Nutshell. A Brief History Of Time is just 200 pages of cosmology-infused neurological synesthesia, the hallucinogenic ramblings of a tripping professor that I only committed to print after re-reading some of my old Asimov paperbacks."

Hawkins also confessed that it was only after months of arguments with his literary agent that he was persuaded to change the title of the book from 'I've Got A Little Rabbit' to the title we are all now familiar with. The same agent also convinced Hawkins to drop the pseudonym 'Freaky Spazmotron' - a name he'd assumed whilst working on the first draft.

Hawkins was just one of many intellectuals, scientists and physicists who, towards the end of the 1980s, abandoned their powerful radio telescopes and decided to explore "the universes in our minds". Amongst these were the eminent cosmologist Carl Sagan who spent much of the summer 1987 "on a month long, mescaline-and-LSD cocktail induced freakout". Shortly after the book's publication, a recovering Sagan claimed to have written A Brief History Of Time's introduction "from the inside of a giant glove".