But Secretary Gates, who has served numerous presidents in a 43-year government career, endorsed the idea of asking fundamental questions.

VOA: standard.2009.10.06

Right, so the fundamental idea then, is, I want to glue together information, I want to take pieces of data that naturally belong together, glue them together, and attach some methods to it.

放在一起的数据拿出来，把它们放到一起，然后把一些方法附加上去,这些，你知道的，是很长的一个定义，让我们来看个例子吧。

麻省理工公开课 - 计算机科学及编程导论课程节选

That is the fundamental idea that may seem simple and obvious to you, but it certainly wasn't back when the idea first came up.

刚才讲的就是最基本的概念,可能看起来比较简单明显,但这些概念刚出现时并不被广泛理解

耶鲁公开课 - 金融市场课程节选

The libertarian's argument against redistribution begins with this fundamental idea that we own ourselves.

自由主义者反对再分配的论断,始于人人自主这一基本理念。

耶鲁公开课 - 公正课程节选

That's the fundamental idea.

这是它的基本理念。

耶鲁公开课 - 公正课程节选