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Check out AstronomyCast.  Particularly, episodes:
28 What is the Universe expanding into?
58 Inflation
77 Centre of the Universe
78 How Big is the Universe?
79 What is the shape of the Universe?
81 Questions on the Shape, Size and Centre of the Universe

http://www.astronomycast.com/category/a … cosmology/

Basically though, there's no "outside edge".  Don't try to imagine the Universe (or multiple Universes) as existing in some external space like galaxies do inside the Universe.  Imagine being a 2D form on the surface of an expanding balloon.  Your "Universe" is getting bigger, but that's because space itself is expanding.  It's not expanding into something that you could get to if you could only jump off the surface of the balloon.

As for being infinite or not, my understanding from AstronomyCast 79 is that it appears like the Universe might be infinite, but we're not sure.  For one, it's expanding so the "edge", where light would loop back around at us, is beyond the region of space that we can see (ie. the distance from objects in those regions of space to us is expanding faster than their light can traverse to reach us).  All we can do is put a lower limit on the size of the Universe.

Yes, but there are theories that the universe is infinite.

The airplane would NOT take off.

It would do one of those 1900 era film strips in fast motion of it flipping over and breaking into a million pieces.

(and that kids is why you need to leave some slack in your tiedown chains)

Bren wrote:

if you could somehow overcome the problem of traversing the vast distance of our Universe, would it be hypothetically possible for a space traveler to eventually reach the "outside edge?"

Only on the twilight zone, or the outer limits.

If so, could he, she, or it then cross that boundary, and leave our Universe behind, journeying out into a black, starless void? Would they eventually bump into other neighboring Universes?

I don't believe so. Keep in mind that time is relative, I don't know how fast the universe is expanding, but I think at the outside edge, the "big bang" (or the "Let there be light") for all practical purposes just happened, even though 6,000 years have gone by for us

Or does the idea that both space and time are a product of our Universe's creation mean that space-time cannot exist outside our Universe, and there is no way to physically exit it in the conventional way that I'm imagining?

I'm no samantha carter (I don't have the cleavage) but I suspect current theory says we can't exit.

Just curious.

OMG! You killed the cat!

You guys are totally immature!

Everybody knows helicopters can't fly in outer space.

resedit wrote:

I'm no samantha carter (I don't have the cleavage)

Between [s]these[/s]this and your other recent posts, we can tell where your head is at today.

No wonder you're so... deeply into the health care debate.

Just curious.

OMG! You killed the cat!

I doubt it- in fact, there's a news item about it.

Cats get a bad rap on the Internet, frequently stereotyped as LOL ignoramuses, forever shredding grammar like a half-dead mouse in what the World Wide Web would have us believe is their endless quest for "cheezburgers."

Despite the pigeonholing, cats play piano on YouTube and have their own Facebook profiles, and kitties who tweet exhibit a working knowledge of sentence construction that challenges those of their human Twitter compatriots. So it was only a matter of time before a feline got around to earning an online high school equivalency diploma.

Rescued from a ditch when she was no more than a teeny, tiny ball of fluff, Oreo C. Collins, a 2-year-old tuxedo cat from Macon, Ga., may be the very first in her family to obtain a 'high school' diploma — online or off. (Of course, we may never know for sure because, as she wrote in her "life experience essay" portion of the test, she's adopted.) Kelvin Collins, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Central Georgia and Oreo's rescuer, encouraged Oreo to seek her "education," by taking part in the BBB's ongoing investigation of online diploma mills.

"Oreo's a really smart cat," Collins said in a recent telephone interview with msnbc.com. So smart that Oreo garnered mostly As in the online test, with some of her credits earned from her aforementioned life experience essay about her adoption into the Collins family.

Clever cat earns ‘high school diploma’ online

I think Bren got his GED there?

ukimalefu wrote:

There are things that are known, and things that are unknown. In between there are doors.

DROP ON TROU TO THE OTHER SIDE! DROP ON TROU...

Uh... sorry. Go back to your topic.

Um... I think I'm too traumatized.

I was led to believe the that space was curved and recursive and that the center of the universe lay in subspace such that all points in the universe were equidistant from it.

I punched that guy in the face.

Tallgeese wrote:

(and that kids is why you need to leave some slack in your tiedown chains)

I don't think it was due to it being tied down. It looks like they were running the rotors at the natural frequency of the structure which caused it to tear itself apart.

Here you go

I used to test aircraft components on shakers to ensure that their natural frequencies were outside of the range of normal operation.

Zapata wrote:

Tallgeese wrote:

(and that kids is why you need to leave some slack in your tiedown chains)

I don't think it was due to it being tied down. It looks like they were running the rotors at the natural frequency of the structure which caused it to tear itself apart.

No, it's called ground resonance. When in flight or on the ground with the ability to 'bounce' so to speak, the vibration of the blades doesn't set up a resonance. When it's tied too tightly to the deck the vibrations feed back through it and it can shake apart. I've been in charge of helicopter flight deck safety and operations, it's a very important thing to teach the handlers, to always leave slack in the chains and avoid this problem.