User blog:Uknownada/The Search for Willy Karen

I was searching through older One Piece chapters and I came across something interesting. I've never actually seen anybody question this or even discuss it at all. There's a quote that's been quietly lurking around the fandom that perplexes me:

"'Everything that humans can imagine is a possibility in reality.' ~Physicist Willy Karen"

Now what does this mean and what does it have to do with One Piece? It turns out that this quote was used in one of the One Piece chapters. Chapter 218, page 14. Here's a quick link to it. It was said during the dawn of the Jaya Arc, when that ship fell from the sky. It's a more-or-less fitting quote, since a giant ship falling down from out of nowhere is such a great thing to imagine. But there's one thing that confuses me.

Who is Willy Karen?

I haven't seen anybody question who this person is. I google search for him, but pretty much all the results will be people who just confidently quote him without any source on the quote whatsoever. This is so weird, since I can only seem to trace both the quote and the person to One Piece exclusively. There's nothing that talks about him being a physicist or where he even wrote down this quote at.

I would dismiss this as just a stupid fan translation from someone who doesn't know what they're doing (or wanted to play a joke), but EVERYONE seems to be using this. It's hard to find a source of the manga that has something different written there. I don't know what Viz's translation, or what the original Japanese version says, but I just want to know how this even came to be originally. Nobody is talking about it, and I'd like people to talk about it. It's bothering me. I feel bothered. This is a great example of "If you tell a lie enough times, people will start to think it's the truth."

Willy Karen, if you're reading this out there, please reveal yourself to the public so we can end this mystery. Well, I'm the only one who's so curious about it, so do it for me.