ZORTHEX v1.1 — Public Attention Diffusion Lag: A Replicable Framework for Measuring Technology Diffusion

Public attention to new technologies typically arrives years after their first public emergence — yet this lag has rarely been measured systematically. This work introduces the Zorthex Public Attention Diffusion Lag (L), an empirical indicator defined as the number of months between the first public emergence of a technology (seminal paper or commercial launch) and the first sustained mainstream peak of public search interest, operationalised on Google Trends with locked thresholds (≥25/100, sus