Yay! So I get to write a blog on my favorite food! (And I'm going to assume it's one of Doc's favorite foods too considering the constant supply of popcorn in the physics room) This afternoon, I started to pop a bag of good ol' microwave popcorn, but then I realized that I was about to witness physics! So, I ran to get my camera to take a picture of the unpopped bag of popcorn. When I stopped the microwave and opened the door to take a picture, I let heat out of the microwave because heat travels to the area of lower temperature. I closed the microwave door and after the popcorn was done, it had expanded to a volume much larger than the originally flat bag with oil and kernels. This was because of Charles's law: Vi/Ti=Vf/Tf. The microwave increased the temperature of the popcorn kernels, so they popped and increased the volume of the bag. Charles's law can be applied because the pressure and moles of gas in the bag were pretty much constant.
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