Kapitza was born in Kronstadt, Russia, 26 June 1894. He married Nadejda Tschernosvitoff and after she died he married Anna Kryloff, in 1927, and they had two sons. Kapitza was a Lecturer at Petrograd Politechnical Institute, 1919-1921. He was at Cambridge University, 1923-1926 and was a Fellow of Trinity College. He was Assistant Director of Magnetic Research at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, 1924-1932. Kapitza worked with Rutherford until 1935 when he to Russia on holiday and permission to return to England was refused and he was made Director of a new Institute for Physical Problems of the Academy of Sciences. He played an important role in the Sputnik satellite programme from 1955 onwards Kapitza was awarded numerous medals and prizes for his work including the Nobel Prize for his contribution to low temperature physics (jointly) in 1978 and the Order of Lenin, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1964, 1971, 1974. Kapitza's publications include "Collected Papers", in 3 volumes, 1964-1967; "Experiment, Theory, Practice", 1980 and various publications on physics, mainly on magnetism, cryogenics and high temperature plasma in scientific journals. Kapitza died 8 April 1984.