How Popcorn Pops?
Pop corn does not start out popped, hence the name popcorn or popping corn. As the name corn implies it starts out as a corn kernel on an ear of corn. The best way to pop corn is by applying heat. There may be different ways if you are familiar or rather, very familiar with chemistry and/or physics. There is no real best way to pop popcorn; popcorn is great no matter how it is popped.
Why Popcorn Pops?
As silly as this may sound, popcorn pops because it gets heated. The heating is essential to popping pop corn. The best way to describe this is by using an example. A good example may be a tumbles or air blowing ping pong balls around inside a close container. As heat is added the energy inside the kernel increases and things start to happen. The energy comes from the heat or fire. This is why you must heat the pop corn, to add energy. The energy eventually comes to a certain point, which you may call the popping point. This is when the heat builds up so much that the particles inside the kernel do something amazing. In fact you may think differently about popcorn when you are eating once you see what actually happens. It is absolutely fascinating.
Heating the Popcorn to Pop the Pop Corn.
You must heat the popcorn to make the reaction that makes the popcorn pop. You may ask "why does popcorn pop?" Or "How does popcorn pop?" Those are two very good questions. Just apply heat to a kernel and see what happened. You can get a popcorn popper that will pop the popcorn kernels individually and this way you can watch it, or take a picture. To understand how heating the popcorn makes it pops it would help if you took a course in chemistry or researched popcorn a little more. This can be done on the web or in your kitchen. The best way to do it is to read more and watch the video. Once you understand the basics then you can understand the more complex things. Popcorn, even though it seems simple enough, involves complex interactions.