  Nucleation, commonly associated with discontinuous transformations between
metastable and stable phases, is crucial in fields as diverse as atmospheric
science and nanoscale electronics. Traditionally, it is considered a
microscopic process (at most nano-meter), implying the formation of a
microscopic nucleus of the stable phase. Here we show for the first time, that
considering long-range interactions mediated by elastic distortions, nucleation
can be a macroscopic process, with the size of the critical nucleus
proportional to the total system size. This provides a new concept of
"macroscopic barrier-crossing nucleation". We demonstrate the effect in
molecular dynamics simulations of a model spin-crossover system with two
molecular states of different sizes, causing elastic distortions.
