Pyotor L. Kapitza. a noted Soviet physicist and outspoken critic of political orthodoxy, has begun a three-day visit to Harvard. He will deliver a lecture on "The Education of Scientists in the Soviet Union" at 4:45 p.m. today at the Loeb.

In the 1920's, at Cambridge University, he developed techniques for liquefying helium and producing strong magnetic fields, and in 1929 became the first non-Briton to be elected a fellow of the Royal Society, Britain's top scientific body. But during a visit to Moscow in 1934, Kapitza was detained, reportedly on Stalin's orders, and placed in charge of the Institute of Physical Problems, a center for researchers in physics and mathematics.

In a speech widely circulated in the West last Spring, Kapitza criticized Soviet technology for lagging behind the West's and urged Soviet ideologists to take a less rigid view of Western student political movements.