Harry is allowed to solve this problem any way YOU would solve it. If you can tell me exactly how to do something, Harry is
allowed to think of it.
This is not quite phrased correctly. While I know less magic than the protagonist (having not attended Hogwarts for a year), I know far more physics and mathematics than he does. I am also privy to world-building knowledge that he isn’t. For example, we know about major artefacts:
The Elder wand has been repeatedly featured in the fic, but neither Harry!Riddle not Voldemort!Riddle are aware of it yet.
We also know little trivia:
Tom Riddle’s middle name in this AU is Morfin, not Marvolo. Knowing canon this tells us something about Merope Gaunt’s relationship with her father and brother.
In conclusion: it’s not enough for us to think of a solution, we also need to explain how Harry can think of it. There’s no point in simulating Harry’s smarts on my hardware, I can use my own smarts. But I do need to simulate Harry’s knowledge.
Similarly, it would be seriously pushing it to rely on any scientific advances of the last (real-world) decade or so, unless there’s a reason Harry would be able to at least semi-plausibly pre-discover them himself. Not that I can think of any of those which would help anyhow, but it’s something to keep in mind.
Future tech—even things we think we could perhaps do—is probably right out. Harry could conceivably transfigure something (his epidermis, for example; has anybody mentioned that yet?) into a material that we know exists or could exist, and can describe in atomic or sub-atomic detail, yet can’t synthesize; an arbitrary isotope of an arbitrary element should probably be possible, for example. He can’t use transfiguration to produce something with negative mass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_mass), though… at least, I would assume not, even if the science he knows suggests that such a thing is theoretically possible.
This is not quite phrased correctly. While I know less magic than the protagonist (having not attended Hogwarts for a year), I know far more physics and mathematics than he does. I am also privy to world-building knowledge that he isn’t. For example, we know about major artefacts:
The Elder wand has been repeatedly featured in the fic, but neither Harry!Riddle not Voldemort!Riddle are aware of it yet.
We also know little trivia:
Tom Riddle’s middle name in this AU is Morfin, not Marvolo. Knowing canon this tells us something about Merope Gaunt’s relationship with her father and brother.
In conclusion: it’s not enough for us to think of a solution, we also need to explain how Harry can think of it. There’s no point in simulating Harry’s smarts on my hardware, I can use my own smarts. But I do need to simulate Harry’s knowledge.
Similarly, it would be seriously pushing it to rely on any scientific advances of the last (real-world) decade or so, unless there’s a reason Harry would be able to at least semi-plausibly pre-discover them himself. Not that I can think of any of those which would help anyhow, but it’s something to keep in mind.
Future tech—even things we think we could perhaps do—is probably right out. Harry could conceivably transfigure something (his epidermis, for example; has anybody mentioned that yet?) into a material that we know exists or could exist, and can describe in atomic or sub-atomic detail, yet can’t synthesize; an arbitrary isotope of an arbitrary element should probably be possible, for example. He can’t use transfiguration to produce something with negative mass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_mass), though… at least, I would assume not, even if the science he knows suggests that such a thing is theoretically possible.