  We study the one-dimensional sine-Gordon model as a prototype of roughening
phenomena. In spite of the fact that it has been recently proven that this
model can not have any phase transition [J. A. Cuesta and A. Sanchez, J. Phys.
A 35, 2373 (2002)], Langevin as well as Monte Carlo simulations strongly
suggest the existence of a finite temperature separating a flat from a rough
phase. We explain this result by means of the transfer operator formalism and
show as a consequence that sine-Gordon lattices of any practically achievable
size will exhibit this apparent phase transition at unexpectedly large
temperatures.
