Aleksandr V. Korolev

A scale with a faulty calibration shows more than is actually there, and a piece of cheese seems heavier. A similar glitch occurred in measuring superconductivity in nickelates, materials that conduct electricity without resistance under certain conditions.

Weighing a piece of ice in a glass of water can tell you how much water has already frozen. If the scale is off by a factor of three, the ice will appear much larger than it really is. A similar story happened with calculations of the superconducting phase in a crystal of nickel, lanthanum, and samarium under high pressure.