STEVE SPANGLER

AGE: 40
OCCUPATION: Author, science teacher, television personality
NUMBER OF TIME COVERS: 0
PREVIOUS APPEARANCES ON THE TIME 100: 0

PRO: Credited with the first demonstration, on a TV segment, of the Mentos Eruption—creating a geyser by mixing Diet Coke and Mentos—re-creations of which have themselves erupted to become one of the largest of YouTube phenomena.

CON: A writer for the Denver Post asked him last year, "You're 39 years old, and getting a pop bottle to squirt 20 feet in the air is the best trick you know?" He replied that it wasn't the best trick, just the most notorious.