A Trip to Infinity

As "A Trip To Infinity" (2022 release; 79 min) opens, we are introduced to a group of smart, very smart talking heads including mathematicians, physicists, cosmologists, etc. And they start talking about what infinity is. One of them, applied mathematician Steven Strogatz, explains it by way of the story of The Infinite Hotel, as a cartoon plays out what Strogatz is talking about. At this point we are 10 minutes into the movie.

Couple of comments: this is co-directed by veteran documentarian Jon Halperin (who also co=wrote and co-produced this) and newcomer Drew Takahashi. The movie is divided into 9 Chapters and a Conclusion. There is of course no plot to speak of, and along the way we are confronted with seemingly simple questions like "can you go beyond infinity?", "is infinity real or a human invention", etc. The talking heads provide their perspectives, and I haven't a clue whether what they way is true or not. The fascinating thing is that their mind-bending musings are all accompanied by a montage of some sort, at times quite literally (see: The Infinite Hotel), at times very abstract. The original score is an intriguing electronic collage by newcomer Efrim Manuel Menuck. Can't wait to hear more where that came from. Bottom line: this is not your average documentary. I quite enjoyed it for what it was.

"A Trip To Infinity" premiered on Netflix earlier this week. If you are in the mood for something different altogether and don't mind that your brain might get scrambled a bit along the way, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

The never-ending curiosity to know the unknown is something that scientists devote their life. And infinity is one of the biggest of them.

When we talk about the existence of God and the end of infinity, it seems like we don't know; or maybe we have an infinite answer to it, yet we can't be so sure. It made me feel that every second of our life is crucial in the realm of infinity, where my existence is so tiny.

Apart from my philosophical understanding, the documentary was very thoughtful and insightful. It explains infinity from different perspectives. It felt like my brain was enjoying a good meal. The psychedelic animations and VFX were undoubtedly creative, aesthetic, and eye-soothing. Loved it!

This documentary avoids some of the mistakes that physics documentaries usually make. The visuals take a lot of artistic license but they're mostly not inane and actually help us visualize certain concepts, the experts give a lot of one-liners but they don't feel too much like trolling us or just bantering (for the most part), the subject is open-ended but there's a focus to ponder over just that.

However, I wish the questions and cues were a little less of a shtick so that the experts could expound on the subject a little more, in their own ways - there are actually many of us who like to be intellectually challenged (those who are seeking for entertainment wouldn't even give this a shot anyway).

For example, when the experts are given a glass globe in their hands and asked about holding infinity, it's cute but a little cringey. In fact, Levin already points out that's not how infinity works, if it's truly infinity, we won't be having a comfortable bird's-eye view of it, it's just a very human-centric approach. Moments like these attempt to lure profound statements over something that's already very profound on its own. Instead, what may work better is that, with each example that the experts give, they could go a little deeper, discussing things like how they may try to prove it mathematically/experimentally, what are the limits, paradoxes, different theories on it, etc.

I have no idea why some people would give this a high score. This is not a documentary. This is some nice visuals with lose incoherent points that are never made. If you give it a low score, you must not understand it right, cause your brain is to small? It has a few good points, but most of it is just empty space and very little science. Hire a few smart people, make them say some stuff, add visuals, done. Netflix almost always makes horrible documentaries. Just buy this sort of content from other creators instead. For the amount of actual information that is given to the viewer this could have been much shorter.

The topic of infinity is interesting, puzzling, and maddening. In mathematics the notion of infinity arises from either a way to describe things we can comprehend or explain or when an equation describing a system leads to an undefined state often called a singularity. The movie provides exhaustive thoughts on the former but not enough of the latter. There is an array of respected physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers. I would have liked more differing viewpoints. Most of the discussion was homogeneous and became repetitive.

The production was top rate and I give full marks for graphics and insightful questions so it was interesting enough for me to recommend it to anyone interested in science and math.