Ironically, it was Boris Derjaguin's participation in the polywater debacle that caused many to dismiss him when he claimed to have synthesized diamond by chemical vapor deposition, at pressures far below the thermodynamic stability region for diamond.

In fact, he was right and diamond synthesis by CVD is routine today. We probably lost about a decade of progress in diamond CVD because of Derjaguin's having been tarred with polywater, as it were.