Peter Scott was a man of many passions and talents –- physicist, environmental activist, choral and solo singer, songwriter, player of the banjo, piano, and tin whistle, storyteller, woodworker, gardener, bird-watcher, backpacker, father, step-father, and grandfather — and significantly, life partner to former Santa Cruz mayor, Celia Scott. He died of cancer on Oct. 24th at the age of 91.

Scott taught physics at UC Santa Cruz from 1966 to 1994. He often called his chosen field, “Natural Philosophy” because that’s what it was known as in Isaac Newton’s time, he said. Scott was one of the initial group of five physics faculty in UCSC’s early years, an academic all-star team that included Ronald H. Ruby, James D. Currin, Bruce Rosenblum, and Michael Naumberg. He is best known for pioneering research into nonlinear dynamics and deterministic chaos, and working with McArthur Fellow, Rob Shaw, on the “Chaotic Rhythms of a Dripping Faucet.” (Many wonder, even today, why Peter’s email always remained drip@ucsc.edu! Solved.) “The dripping faucet experiment…exhibits all the characteristic complexities of chaos in a simple setting.” (J.H. Callahan, et al, Computers in Physics, 1990).

But even more than his research interests and accomplishments, Scott was well-known and loved by generations of students for his patient and supportive mentoring and his enthusiastic and creative approach to teaching. He had a knack for writing funny educational song lyrics too, like his friend Tom Lehrer. Those songs include, “It’s Gravity with a G,” and “Elec-a-tri-ci-ty and Mag-a-ne-ti-sm m m.” He often ended each teaching quarter at UCSC by bringing his banjo into the classroom to perform a song he’d written, incorporating the theme of his syllabus into the lyrics to help students remember principles of thermodynamics and other physics concepts. Scott wrote and publicly performed songs to encourage activists and memorialize their accomplishments, including songs about preserving the Gray Whale Ranch, securing bike parking in UCSC buildings, and what is probably his best-remembered song, co-written with Celia Scott for her victorious 1994 campaign for Santa Cruz City Council, “Dancing on the Brink of the World” about the San Lorenzo River flowing through Santa Cruz.

Peter Leslie Scott was born in San Francisco in 1933 to Leslie and Elizabeth Scott. He spent his youth in the Richmond District and graduated from George Washington High School. He received an undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley, an M.A. from the University of Michigan, and his Ph.D. in physics, also from UC Berkeley. He is survived by, in addition to Celia Scot, daughters Sandra and Martha; and step-sons, Anthony Von der Muhll and Roland Vonder Muhll. His third daughter, Kathy, passed away in the spring of 2024.

From age six until his last backpack trip at 84, Scott spent much of his summers in the Sierra Nevada. His insouciant, tread-lightly relationship to wilderness was kindred to another of his idols, John Muir, fusing scientific curiosity with aesthetic and mystical reverie in the wonders of nature. He was most at peace when listening to marmots and Clark’s nutcrackers chattering away somewhere off-trail in the high country, with only barest essentials to support his excursions. On trail, he would often skip, sing, and recite poetry even as he carried a heavy pack. He still rode his bicycle until the last month before his passing.

Locally, he was involved in securing our Santa Cruz greenbelt lands. He helped champion the public acquisition and preservation of the Pogonip, Arana Gulch, the Moore Creek Uplands, and Gray Whale Ranch. Peter and Celia Scott were at the heart of the citizen action that made Wilder Ranch into a state park in 1974, pushed PG&E to abandon its plan for a nuclear power plant in Davenport, and generating hundreds of signatures for the 1972 ballot initiative that established the California Coastal Commission. For many years Peter was an active member of the Sierra Club.

After retiring from UCSC, he worked tirelessly on transportation issues, non-car, pro-ped, pro-bike and pro-rail ones. Through his work with the activist group, Campaign for Sustainable Transportation, Peter designed a website and slideshow touting the ills of Highway 1 expansion and the need for creating alternatives to car travel. He also strongly supported a rail connection between Davenport and Watsonville.

Scott often used the term, “yeastiness,” meaning the fermentation of thoughts, ideas, and movements. There will be a celebration of Peter Scott’s yeastiness, and life, in Santa Cruz in the spring of 2025 with the time and location to be made public in late March. In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent in his name to the Campaign for Sustainable Transportation.

Chris Krohn is a Santa Cruz resident.