Popcorn Decoded: Science Reveals How Kernels Pop

America's tryst with it began more than 100 years ago but it took modern technology and science to reveal how to make popcorn just right.

According to BBC, researchers found that heating popcorn to 180 degree Celsius (critical temperature) causes the hard outer shell to burst open and force the inner starch to emerge, which causes the noticeable jump and then the sound, which has nothing to do with the jump. The critical temperature is indeed critical as lower temperatures do not cause the outer shell to open adequately.

French researches studied popcorn with high speed cameras that took nearly 3,000 frames per second. They were able to see every stage of popcorn cooking and calculated that all of it happens in hundredth of a second, Daily Mail reported.

As the starch material exudes from the kernel, the energy accumulating causes corn to jump. The popping sound associated with popcorn is not from the jumping as is assumed but due to the sudden release of water vapour, researchers found.

"We note that the popcorn dynamic is twofold: the popping relies on a fracture as for explosive plants, while the jump relies on a leg as for animals. Concerning the 'pop' sound, we synchronized acoustic and video recordings: the scenario of an excitation by the water vapour release is consistent with our observations," researchers wrote in Journal of Royal Society Interface.