The TR Araña (

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

, meaning "route tracing spider") is a robot which is claimed to remotely analyse the composition of the ground. The device was created by

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

an inventor Manuel Salinas and was reported to be able to operate at depths of up to 50 metres. It is widely believed by the scientific community to be a fraud.

Principles

Answering a request by the Chilean Commission on Nuclear Energy, Salinas wrote the following paragraph: At a presentation at the

Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María Universidad (Spanish for "university") may refer to: Places * Universidad, San Juan, Puerto Rico * Universidad (Madrid) Football clubs * Universidad SC, a Guatemalan football club that represents the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala ...

Valparaíso Valparaíso (; ) is a major city, seaport, naval base, and educational centre in the commune of Valparaíso, Chile. "Greater Valparaíso" is the second largest metropolitan area in the country. Valparaíso is located about northwest of Santiago ...

, on 12 October 2005, Salinas gave fantastic and seemingly irrational theories to explain how his machine worked. Before an audience of students, physicists and engineers he offered inconsistent explanations. But after some questions by students (questions answered with a mix of science fiction and ignorance), professor and Doctorate in Physics Patricio Häberle spoke to the audience, thanking them for their patience and respect, but saying that the presentation would stop there, the University would neither support nor give space for it, and that what the person (referring to Salinas) had talked about was not serious.

Criticism

Salinas says that the robot bounces a nuclear signal off materials to search for specific atomic compositions. Consensus exists among scientists that the technology Salinas says is used on the robot works — but only to depths of 30 cm and anything beyond that, such as the dozens of meters he claims to be able to probe, would be considered a technological advance. Salinas has refused to patent the machine, saying the technology is "an industrial secret."

References

External links

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"TR Araña: La octava maravilla"
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El Mercurio ''El Mercurio'' (known online as ''El Mercurio On-Line'', ''EMOL'') is a Chilean newspaper with editions in Valparaíso and Santiago. Its Santiago edition is considered the country's newspaper of record and it is considered the oldest daily in t ...

'') (in Spanish) * * *
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Tr Arana Rolling robots Robots of Chile 2005 robots Pseudoscience Hoaxes in science Academic scandals