An index for measuring cultural distance of " Science" and " the public" in Isfahan

Penetration and diffusion of ideas and scientific rules among the public develops slowly. A new constructed scientific idea by experts, even when is accepted in the special scientific community, takes a long time to reach to the public. It took almost 100 years that simple scientific data such as ground rotation, which is considered obvious today, become an accepted truth among the public. However, the speed of information and ideas diffusion is very various in different parts of the world. This article aims to present a method for measuring the cultural distance between the public thinking and the concepts of astronomy. Therefore, the basic aim of this paper is measuring the distance between the scientific concepts of astronomy and the public awareness. The main question which is examined in the present article is “how much is the cultural distance
regarding different scientific concepts of astronomy and how long it take a scientific idea accepted by the public and become universal?” The population aged from 15 to 79 years old in 15 districts of Isfahan in 2016 has been addressed in this study. The method of sampling is quota sampling which categorized the population based on the indicators such as “gender”, “age” and “district”, and 630 questionnaires were distributed among the participants. The data analysis was done using SPSS and a method was offered for measuring the distance scientific idea and the public perception of that idea. The distance is measured based on years of formal education. It seems that factors such as complexity of a scientific phenomenon, the duration of life cycle of that phenomenon and the influence of it on the citizens daily life impacts the cultural distance between scientific idea and the public perception.