Over time, it resumes.

Posted March 10th, 2009.

Once you place a cold bag of peas into boiling water, the boiling stops.  The reason why is that the heat of the stove is no longer sufficient to overcome the relatively still state of the water molecules. Those molecules are normally excited by the heat to the point that they change form and become gaseous. So, when you put the peas in the water, it cools it to the point that the water stops boiling and the molecules no longer escape the pan as vaporous gas.  This is much more fun than fighting a case of gum disease as you can imagine.