1. Blowing an anvil 200ft into the air. This stunt has scant scientific or educational value, but deserves a prominent place on the list for the presenter's coltish enthusiasm for explosions.
Wow moment: 1:33
2. Blowing up a bed. The propane-loving Barry Bernard blew up a piece of household furniture every week on the Sky science series Braniac. Here he fires a bed high into the air using his "secret" mix of gases.
Wow moment: 1:33
3. Depth charge mine clearance. According to the blurb accompanying the original video on YouTube, this blast was much larger than the navy mine clearance team intended. The black dust that appeared a few seconds after the initial explosion was the remnants of a sunk Second World War vessel caught up in the explosion, it is claimed.
Wow moment: 0:21
4. Earth shaking nuclear test. In 1971 US military scientists detonated Cannikin, a five megaton nuclear bomb, beneath the Alaskan island of Amchitka. The trial was intended to test the geographical impact of a huge underground nuclear blast. As this clip shows, the force of the explosion caused the ground to rise 20ft and led to the formation of a new lake.
Wow moment: All the way through
5. Blowing up 100 tons of TNT for no reason
Wow moment: 0:17
6. Creamer cannon. The Discovery Channel's MythBusters crew have a passion for wild experiments, as this was one of their most explosive. They created a tower of flame by igniting a highly-flammable milk substitute that was "fired" out of a cannon by compressed air.
Wow moment: 0:49
7. Tsar Bomba. The largest nuclear device ever detonated was the Tsar Bomba, a 50 megaton device which was set off by the Russians on an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean in 1961.This footage shows the blast and the extraordinary mushroom cloud it produced.
Wow moment: 0:14
8. Dumping barrels of sodium into a lake. After the Second World War 20,000 lbs of sodium - which as every schoolboy knows reacts violently with water - were thrown into Lake Lenore in Washington. This is what happened.
Wow moment: 0:59
9. Liquid nitrogen in a swimming pool. As stupid pranks go, this is pretty impressive. Anyone for a quick dip?
Wow moment: 0:22
10. Smoke stack demolished. An amateur video showing the graceful fall - and explosive landing - of a coal chimney in Minnesota.
Wow moment: 0:38
St. Paul Xcel Energy High Bridge Coal Plant Smoke Stack Implosion from Chris White on Vimeo.
11. Classroom experiment goes wrong. The glass-shattering blast only just manage to outshine the teacher's garish rainbow coat.
Wow moment: 0:19
12. Slow motion water balloon explosions. Mesmerisingly beautiful, even without the music.
Wow moments: 0:06 and 0:03
13. Exploding whale. The presenter of this 1970 news clip insists that dynamite was the only way of getting rid of the dead whale that washed up on an Oregon beach. True or not, it made for an unusually colourful blast.
Wow moment: 1:33
14. Exploding tree. While a bit of a slow-burner, this clip is well worth watching to the end. After catching light on a power line the tree is gradually crippled by flames, before the cable itself explodes.
Wow moment: 4:03
15. Weapons cache. The Live Leak website hosts hundreds of explosion clips uploaded by US soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. This detonation of an enemy weapons dump is particularly eye grabbing.
Wow moment: 4:03
