READ

101: Coding

Fancy yourself an amateur Keanu Reeves? If you want to enter the Matrix, it’s time to talk about coding.
Not As Boring As You ThinkTech
5 November 2025
Thomas Crow
Thomas Crow
Freelance science writer
101: Coding

You might be interested

Coding is used everywhere. Every science fan can benefit from learning how to code, and it’s easy to get started. Coding is simply communicating with a computer. You do this by learning coding languages designed to give instructions to computers.

Some of the most cutting-edge science uses coding, like the new ‘Google for DNA’ Metagraph. Code builds video games like Roblox and even the Particle website!

A computer uses binary language. The flow of electricity through billions of transistors becomes 1s and 0s in binary.

The first programmers used binary to communicate directly with the computer. But now there are many user-friendly languages like JavaScript, C, R and Python.

So how do scientists use these languages to make discoveries?

How scientists use code

Coding helps scientists run experiments and analyse results. Fields like astronomy, physics and biomedical research generate huge amounts of data.

A 2023 pre-print article predicts we’re reaching an inflection point for science. The huge information growth and data processing tools will create a scientific revolution. Most of these tools require coding knowledge to use.

In fact, plenty of great WA science projects use coding to make incredible discoveries.

Local code heroes

The Desert Fireball Network tracks fireballs and meteorites in the remote outback. Autonomous cameras track falling meteorites. It helps discover the origins and make-up of meteorites. It might even help us learn how rocky planets form.

Caption: Coding helps cameras catch blazing fireballs across the night sky. 
Credit: The Desert Fireball Network

The Kids Research Institute Australia in Nedlands uses code to study public DNA databases. It learns markers for rare genetic diseases and helps diagnose cancers in children.

Pawsey Supercomputing Centre in Bentley houses the southern hemisphere’s largest supercomputer, Setonix. One of its projects uses atomic simulations to find better ways to desalinate water.

These modern science projects would be impossible without coding.

You can become a tech-head too

If you’re ready to start learning to code, there are lots of resources available. It just depends on what you’d like to learn.

There are free guides and YouTube videos to get started coding. The University of Helsinki runs a free online Python programming course.

There are lots of books too. Your local library might even have a few!

If you’re a scientist, Carpentries workshops are a great place to start.

Lots of coders begin as self-taught, and who knows? One day your code might be the next step of the scientific revolution.

Caption: Atomic simulations could help produce fresh drinking water, that’s pretty revolutionary!
Credit: Dr Emily Kahl and Michelle Hunter/Pawsey
Republish this articleRepublish
Thomas Crow
About the author
Thomas Crow
Thomas Crow is an Australian science writer. He has a background in professional writing, biochemistry and genetics. He writes for Australian and New Zealand research institutes and publications like Crikey. He's a horror and gothic fantasy fan. He thinks of himself as a gardener but scores of dead plants beg to differ.
View articles
Thomas Crow is an Australian science writer. He has a background in professional writing, biochemistry and genetics. He writes for Australian and New Zealand research institutes and publications like Crikey. He's a horror and gothic fantasy fan. He thinks of himself as a gardener but scores of dead plants beg to differ.
View articles

NEXT ARTICLE

We've got chemistry, let's take it to the next level!

Get the latest WA science news delivered to your inbox, every fortnight.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Republish

Creative Commons Logo

Republishing our content

We want our stories to be shared and seen by as many people as possible.

Therefore, unless it says otherwise, copyright on the stories on Particle belongs to Scitech and they are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

This allows you to republish our articles online or in print for free. You just need to credit us and link to us, and you can’t edit our material or sell it separately.

Using the ‘republish’ button on our website is the easiest way to meet our guidelines.

Guidelines

You cannot edit the article.

When republishing, you have to credit our authors, ideally in the byline. You have to credit Particle with a link back to the original publication on Particle.

If you’re republishing online, you must use our pageview counter, link to us and include links from our story. Our page view counter is a small pixel-ping (invisible to the eye) that allows us to know when our content is republished. It’s a condition of our guidelines that you include our counter. If you use the ‘republish’ then you’ll capture our page counter.

If you’re republishing in print, please email us to let us so we know about it (we get very proud to see our work republished) and you must include the Particle logo next to the credits. Download logo here.

If you wish to republish all our stories, please contact us directly to discuss this opportunity.

Images

Most of the images used on Particle are copyright of the photographer who made them.

It is your responsibility to confirm that you’re licensed to republish images in our articles.

Video

All Particle videos can be accessed through YouTube under the Standard YouTube Licence.

The Standard YouTube licence

  1. This licence is ‘All Rights Reserved’, granting provisions for YouTube to display the content, and YouTube’s visitors to stream the content. This means that the content may be streamed from YouTube but specifically forbids downloading, adaptation, and redistribution, except where otherwise licensed. When uploading your content to YouTube it will automatically use the Standard YouTube licence. You can check this by clicking on Advanced Settings and looking at the dropdown box ‘License and rights ownership’.
  2. When a user is uploading a video he has license options that he can choose from. The first option is “standard YouTube License” which means that you grant the broadcasting rights to YouTube. This essentially means that your video can only be accessed from YouTube for watching purpose and cannot be reproduced or distributed in any other form without your consent.

Contact

For more information about using our content, email us: particle@scitech.org.au

Copy this HTML into your CMS
Press Ctrl+C to copy

You might be interested