  The influence of the pressure of a chemically inert carrier-gas on the
nucleation rate is one of the biggest puzzles in the research of gas-liquid
nucleation. Different experiments can show a positive effect, a negative
effect, or no effect at all. The same experiment may show both trends for the
same substance depending on temperature, or for different substances at the
same temperature. We show how this ambiguous effect naturally arises from the
competition of two contributions: nonisothermal effects and pressure-volume
work. Our model clarifies seemingly contradictory experimental results and
quantifies the variation of the nucleation ability of a substance in the
presence of an ambient gas. Our findings are corroborated by results from
molecular dynamics simulation and might have important implications since
nucleation in experiments, technical applications, and nature practically
always occurs in the presence of an ambient gas.
