How can there be an edge of the universe?
106499
This is the case\ncircumferences no where centres everywhere\n\nJust try,  even you can not imagine NOTHING, because before imagining that, your mind was already there, thereby the NOTHINGNESS is voilated.\n Even the 'ZERO' is not the one we usually think.\nIt is a compromising point of  +(Plus) and - (Minus) infinity !!!!!. Even mathametically all is filled in 'ZERO'. Enven any number, say 100, it is 0-1000, that is to say you have borrowed it from 'ZERO'\nIt enough for now,  there is musch more to say about 'ZERO'
1078826
The simplest answer to your question about the universe's width is that the concept of WIDTH DOESN'T APPLY TO THE UNIVERSE.  The universe is homogenous and isotropic, big words that essentially mean that no matter where in the universe you are, it looks the same in all directions. Astronomers tell us that currently the farthest we can see into the observable universe is about 13.7-billion light years. This implies that there's some kind of edge at that 13.7-billion ly point. However, if we could move to that "edge" and look around, we'd see exactly the same thing we saw from Earth -- space extending outward everywhere for 13.7-billion light years. For the same reasons we can't say that there is any physical central point to the universe.
1107409
I do not believe you could ever find the 'end' through the knowledge we have today.  This would require us to exceed the speed of light, obtain infinite energy, warp space as a blackhole does, etc.  I do believe there are infinite universes.  Our universe exists as a 'point in infinitely dimensional space.  \n\nOur universe was created from the chaos of the lawlessness of nothingness, we could have been 10 billion times larger in mass or the size or total mass of an atom.  We may be able to difine how much mass the universe has, but possibly never the size.\n\nIt would be like defining the size of a dimensionless point.
358909
There is no "outskirt" to the universe-Each point is the center, just as every point on the surface of a sphere is a center.  One of the primary engines of motion is gravity, which is a warping of space/time.  There is a "thing" we call space/time, which has certain properties, but not necessarily substance (as mass, for example).  According to current theory, at the sub-quantum level, there is a bubbling of space/time in which energy is created and destroyed, but it exactly evens out-the "zero-point" energy.  So, yes, there is a thing called space-time which allows things to exist, but no, there is no outskirts of the universe.
52550
I believe the universe is a 'closed' shape, meaning that there is no 'edge', however it does have a finite size.  But just to entertain your question, if we one day did reach the End of the Universe we literally would be unable to describe anything on the otherside.  Everything we know about physics, space time, the fundamental forces, the universal constants and so on only exist in this universe.  Anything 'outside' of the universe could potentially then have different laws of physics and thus would be completely beyond our comprehension.  Words would literally fail.  For more fun reading, checkout the link in the sources.
65553
The problem here is that you are not visualizing this accurately (and humans might not be able to do so easily). All of our universe's space and time, until it expands, does not exist. \n\nThere might be other universes, or other dimensions, but we really only have theories about those, and we do not have good methods for testing these hypotheses yet, and we might never have them.
275416
The universe is said to be expanding,at least in the sense\nthat all of the galaxies are supposed to be drifting farther\naway from each other.That would seem to contradict your notion of a tremendously big circle as there's no gravitational pull binding them together.\n Also,if space is finite...then what's outside the boundaries?
561415
physically the universe has no limits . but still it is expanding with enormous speed . you can go to this link : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space and find out whatever you need about space . good luck
334137
the universe is finite yet has no boundaries. it may be something like the two dimensional surface of a sphere.  nothing inside or outside the sphere exists for the two dimensional surface.  nothing exists outside the universe in this model.
514889
Outer space extends to the end of the universe. Further, the universe is constantly expanding. No-one knows if anything is beyond the end of the universe.
210647
What lies beyond the edge of the universe is matter that is receding at a speed greater than that of light relative to us. Check out the Begy atomic model, It proposes that the big bang has no beggining and no end and is an ongoing process. Belief in God is possible, comprehension of God is not.
1113632
What is beyond the borders of the universe?\nIs it truly possible for the universe to go on forever? If there is an end, what’s on the other side?\n \nBefore we can address these questions, we must first define universe.  The word universe denotes all space and everything (matter, energy) contained within it.  The prefix uni means one.  The root verse means word, turn, or whole.  Thus our universe has traditionally been thought to be the one whole of all substance or matter.  Questions regarding our universe persist today.  Does it have a beginning and end, or does it go on forever and ever?  Is it linear or curved?  If it has limits of length or curvature, then what lies beyond the Universe?  If something lies beyond the Universe, then can’t we accurately call that the Universe?\n\nSome lay people and some scientists conceive of the universe as infinite space.  Others define the universe as finite, or limited (perhaps curved), space.  Still others incorporate the elements of matter and/or energy into their definition of the universe, as opposed to the space beyond matter and energy.\n\nGiven these concepts of our universe, some scientists conclude that the “totality of space could be infinite. Shrink an infinite space by an arbitrary amount, and it is still infinite. (Scientific American March 2005).”  \n\nAs to the notion that we live in an ever expanding universe, moving away from every other universe on the fabric of space-time, some scientists are careful to point out that “Andromeda, our nearest large galactic neighbor, is actually moving toward us, not away. Such exceptions arise because Hubble's law describes only the average behavior of galaxies (Scientific American March 2005).”\n\nIn accordance with your supposition that our universe is in another universe, “it has been hypothesized by some scientists that the universe may be part of a system of many other universes, known as the multiverse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe).” Modern astrophysicists talk about multiple "pocket" universes that branch off from one another.  Stephen Hawking points out that parallel pocket universes can have no effect on a real observer inside a single pocket, so, according to Hawking, they are theoretical baggage that should be eliminated from cosmology, the study of the origins of the universe.\n\nSome string theories define the universe as a three-dimensional space in an invisible space having more dimensions. This is, in essence, a universe within a universe.  Our zone, a “braneworld” could periodically bounce into another parallel braneworld.  This may create what would appear as a Big Bang from one perspective or a Big Bounce of alternating expanding and contracting universe from another perspective.  Such a cataclysmic event is thought to occur 300 billion years from now, resulting in the rearranging and creation of a new universe.\n\nBeyond the borders of the universe, there are other universes moving through a multiverse.  While scientists do not commonly believe that our universe goes on for an unlimited distance, despite its present expansion, they allow for the possibility that the multiverse may go on forever.  If there is an end to our universe, what’s on the other side is called the multiverse.  If there is an end to the multiverse, another term may need to be coined to describe what lay people commonly refer to as infinite space.\n\nSteve\n:-D
301811
It doesn't work that way. Because the universe is still expanding, if you were to stand still at one edge of the universe, you would see the opposite edge traveling away from you at FASTER than the speed of light. (That's one of the peculiar thing about quasars ... they're so far away that the expansion of space between that location and this location makes them appear to be traveling faster than lightspeed.)\n\nSo how far from one side of the universe to the other? Too late! It's already changed! How about now? Too late again! It's already ... and so on.
38951
The universe has no center, but it is not infinite.  It is finite but unbounded, like the surface of a golf ball.  The surface does not have a center nor a boundary, but it is not infinite.
1056226
The Universe cannot be infinite, because it is expanding, which points to its origin where everything began at the same point, namely the singularity of the Big Bang.  Therefore, if it is expanding, it is bounded.\n\nHowever, it is thought that it probably doesn't have an edge, much like the Earth doesn't have an edge.  If you started in a spaceship and went in a straight line, you would eventually end up where you started, much like if you started at the North Pole and went in a straight line, you would end up back the North Pole.\n\nThe reason: although you would be going in a straight line on the 2-D surface of the Earth, that line is curved in the 3rd dimension.  So, if spacetime is curved in the 4th dimension, you could be going in a straight line 3 dimensionally, but it would be curved 4th dimensionally.
686202
Universe theories talk about a finite and unlimited Universe. The Universe is unlimited because it has no boundaries. There is no edge, no end where a spaceship would have to stop. See it as a tiny bug walking on the surface of a big balloon. The ballon has a finite dimension, but the bug will never find the end, so it is unlimited from the bug's point of view.\nSo, the Universe can be expanding or contracting or staying the same size. This is a very important question to answer in modern astronomy. Latest studies say that it is expanding, but it has not been totally proved.\nAnd where it is expanding? The Universe is creating more space and time where there is nothing.
31705
The best guess today: no.\n\nIn modern cosmology the topology of the universe appears to be open. "Topology" meaning the shape, although in the case of the universe to observe the shape we would have to exist in 4 spatial dimensions. Since we're stuck in 3-dimensions we have to get by on analogies.\n\nThe topology or shape of the universe is something which comes out of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. It depends primarily on the distribution of mass and energy in the universe. If the amount of mass-energy is more than a certain critical value then the universe would be "closed." Basically the mass would curve space-time back onto itself. In a closed universe you could fly off in the direction of the north pole and (after about 25 billion years) and circle the universe to land on the south pole.\n\nIf the amount of mass in the universe is less than this critical value then the topology of the universe is a bit more complex, but, to answer your question space would be infinite.\n\nBased on what we know today that is the case, space is infinite.\n\nHowever, we cannot see an infinite universe. When we see things that are farther away we also see them from deeped in the past. A galaxy we see that is 10 billion light years distant is actually a view of what the galaxy looked like 10 billion years in the past.\n\nWhen we look farther in space, and thus earlier in the history of the universe, we eventually run into the microwave background. For the first 10,000 years or so after the Big Bang the universe was so dense that it wasn't yet transparent. When the density dropped enough to be transparent then some of the light could escape for us to detect much later.\n\nHowever, while the universe is thought to be about 13 billion years old, we can actually see out a bit farther than that, I think around 20 billion light years, because the universe is expanding.\n\nWhat this boils down to is that there is a sort of "wall" beyond which we can't see. This wall corresponds to a time soon after the Big Bang. However, studies of the total mass-energy within the universe strongly suggest that it has an open topology - that it is infinite.\n\n(Of course it is possible that this infinity will be refined when we have a better theory of how Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity play togther. String Theory is one way to combine these two.)