Carburetor

A carburetor was a mechanical device used in 20th century automobiles to overcome an engine's inability to run on pure fuel by supplying it with a mixture of vaporized fuel and air.

In 2374, Tom Paris drew on the carburetor as inspiration when attempting to overcome the instability of a coaxial warp drive. Paris conceived of the idea of using a polaric modulator to dilute the particle stream entering the coaxial drive, thereby solving the problem of particle instabilities resulting in engine overloads. When a hostile alien later attempted to escape aboard a Starfleet shuttlecraft which had been installed with a coaxial drive, Paris was able to target the modulator with a chromoelectric pulse, disrupting the shuttle's engines and preventing the alien's escape.