the.com/popcorn kernel
A drop of water trapped in starch, waiting to explode into snack.
means The small hard seed of a specific corn variety that, when heated, bursts inside-out into a fluffy white puff because the moisture trapped inside turns to steam.
from The word is simply 'pop' (the sudden explosive sound, echoic in origin — English has used 'pop' for a sharp quick noise since around the 1500s) plus 'corn' (Old English 'corn,' meaning grain in general before it narrowed to maize in the Americas). 'Popcorn' itself is an American coinage, first written down in the 1800s, naming the snack by the very sound it makes when it does its trick.
- moisture trigger
- pops at about 14 percent internal water content
- pop physics
- steam pressure hits 135 psi before it bursts
- failure rate
- old hulls crack, leaking steam, becoming sad unpopped duds
- flip speed
- kernel somersaults at roughly 50 times per second mid air