A Trip to Infinity

➤ Rated PG
➤ Netflix

In A Trip to Infinity, mathematicians and physicists try to explain the concept of infinity. The documentary leads into musings about the nature of the universe, but the journey doesn’t reach a satisfactory destination.

As a math professor, I know how hard it is to cram a concept like infinity into 80 minutes. The film’s interviewees do offer some instructive descriptions, but at times they also sacrifice accuracy, offering glib but nonsensical sound bites instead. For example, mathematician and author Eugenia Cheng describes a circle dually as having no sides and infinitely many sides. She concludes, “Infinity has come round to being just like zero.”

Class, don’t copy that down.

The film also loses points for theological defects. Speakers segue from talking about their fields’ use of mathematical infinity into contemplations about the universe’s size and origin. Sadly, despite their front-row seats, the Hubble hotshots can’t hear the heavenly orchestra praising the Lord (Psalm 148).

Some interviewees assume an infinitely large and old universe to tout flashy but unprovable theories, such as the existence of alternate Earths with their own histories. But most astrophysicists rejected the ageless-universe hypothesis last century, as did the early astronomer Moses many moons before. In the film, mathematician Steven Strogatz frets, “I’ll be dead forever,” apparently unaware of life eternal, found in this Earth’s history at Calvary.

To be fair, the glass isn’t infinitely empty. The film’s ­academics include women and people of color, groups largely underrepresented in math and science fields. I also enjoyed the 1950s-style cartoons that illustrated some points. But viewers won’t learn much about mathematics—and even less about its Inventor.