Dynamic type detection (DTD) is the technology by which Mathematica's functions automatically analyze the input given to them and act accordingly.

For example, Mathematica's multiplication operator is overloaded to handle both symbolic and numeric input with intelligent coercion for mixed types. It detects and multiplies symbolic variables, real and complex numbers, integers, vectors, matrices, tensors, and many other objects without requiring users to do explicit typing, or to remember different function names that apply to different types.