It may sound counter-intuitive, to enter this lab, you are not going down, instead, you enter a 14 km long horizontal tunnel that pass through a mountain, and t

It may sound counter-intuitive, to enter this lab, you are not going down, instead, you enter a 14 km long horizontal tunnel that pass through a mountain, and this deep underground lab sits in the middle of tunnel. That tunnel was built to transport materials to a hydro power plant construction site, later was repurposed for science. Ancient windows is not uncommon as far as the instrument it controls still works. In fact, since some control software were developed for old windows, there is little reason to upgrade to latest windows. HN readers may also be surprised the way physicists work is similar to software developing. Vim, emacs, vscode, git are used everyday. C++, Python, Golang, Postgres, docker to name a few. Almost all the heavy lifting happens on Linux. Debian, Ubuntu, sometimes CentOS, although I don't think people will use CentOS on new machines. Of course it is not just software, there are customized hardware too. From FPGA to huge vessel build with ultra-low radiation stainless steel, not to mention the underground lab itself. Last time I heard, this lab is not just for China. It is a civilian facility and they welcome collaboration regardless one's origin. Frankly I am very surprise how supportive the Chinese government is to this kind of research. I cannot imagine how they could benefit from it economically or militarily.