What is Dynamic Programming?

Dynamic programming is an algorithmic technique for solving an optimization problem by breaking it down into simpler overlapping subproblems and solving each subproblem only once, storing the results in a table (often called a 'memoization' table) to avoid redundant computations. It is commonly used in computer science and operations research to solve problems with optimal substructure and overlapping subproblems, such as shortest path problems, knapsack problems, sequence alignment, and control theory.