  Macroscopic theories of nucleation such as classical nucleation theory
envision that clusters of the bulk stable phase form inside the bulk metastable
phase. Molecular dynamics simulations are often used to elucidate nucleation
mechanisms, by capturing the microscopic configurations of all the atoms. In
this letter, we introduce a thermodynamic model that links macroscopic theories
and atomic-scale simulations and thus provide a simple and elegant framework
for testing the limits of classical nucleation theory.
