Foundational Papers

Below is a collection of seminal papers (and one landmark book) that shaped entire fields of research and practice. Though some pre-date modern open-access repositories like arXiv, each entry includes a note on where it was originally published or if an arXiv link is available.

Note: The General category (e.g., Darwin’s work) highlights cross-disciplinary or globally significant contributions that may not have originated as traditional scientific papers.

A Mathematical Theory of Communication – Claude E. Shannon (1948)

Summary
Introduced the field of information theory, defining the quantitative measure of information and the fundamental limits of data compression and transmission. Shannon’s paper presented a general model of communication systems and showed how to encode messages efficiently and reliably despite noise [QUANTAMAGAZINE.ORG].

Influence
Laid the foundation for the modern information age, underpinning digital communications, data storage, and compression. It is often regarded as a single paper that “laid the foundation for the entire communication infrastructure underlying the modern information age” [QUANTAMAGAZINE.ORG].

Citations/Endorsements
Widely celebrated as one of the most important scientific works of the 20th century; its concepts (bits, entropy, channel capacity) are fundamental in computer science and telecommunications.

Source
Published before arXiv existed; see IEEE archives or Bell Labs Journal

The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities – Fischer Black & Myron Scholes (1973)

Summary
Introduced the Black–Scholes model, a mathematical formula to determine the fair value of European stock options. The paper’s key insight was a method of “dynamic hedging” – continuously adjusting a replicating portfolio of underlying assets to eliminate risk – leading to a partial differential equation whose solution gives the option’s price [OPENQUANT.CO] [POLYTECHNIQUE-INSIGHTS.COM].

Influence
Revolutionized finance by making it “possible to control the risks of option trading and thus encouraged the development of derivatives markets” [POLYTECHNIQUE-INSIGHTS.COM]. It provided the first analytically tractable option pricing formula, forming the basis of modern quantitative finance and earning Scholes (and Merton) the 1997 Nobel Prize in Economics.

Citations/Endorsements
Considered a foundational paper in financial economics. Its dynamic hedging approach and formula are still the common language in derivatives pricing decades later [POLYTECHNIQUE-INSIGHTS.COM].

Source
Preprint not available on arXiv; originally published in Journal of Political Economy

Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System – Satoshi Nakamoto (2008)

Summary
This whitepaper outlined Bitcoin, the first decentralized cryptocurrency. It described how to use a peer-to-peer network, proof-of-work consensus, and cryptographic techniques to enable online payments without a trusted intermediary, solving the double-spending problem [BLOG.OBIEX.FINANCE].

Influence
Launched the cryptocurrency revolution, giving rise to blockchain technology and thousands of digital currencies. Over 13 years later, it “continues to influence the global economy, drive blockchain innovation, and impact today’s crypto investors” [BLOG.OBIEX.FINANCE]. Bitcoin’s design has been the template for decentralized finance and is widely regarded as a transformative invention in both computer science and economics.

Citations/Endorsements
Praised by experts and adopted globally; its publication date (October 31, 2008) is now celebrated as “Bitcoin Whitepaper Day” [BLOG.OBIEX.FINANCE]. The paper is highly cited in the cryptocurrency and distributed systems research literature despite being initially released on a cryptography mailing list.

Source
Original whitepaper is available on bitcoin.org , not on arXiv

CRISPR-Cas9 Gene Editing (Jinek et al., 2012)

Summary
Jennifer Doudna, Emmanuelle Charpentier and colleagues demonstrated that the CRISPR-Cas9 system, a bacterial immune mechanism, could be repurposed as a programmable tool to cut DNA at target sequences. Their paper showed how a single guided RNA and the Cas9 enzyme can introduce precise double-strand breaks in DNA, enabling targeted gene modifications [BLOG.OBIEX.FINANCE].

Influence
Revolutionized biotechnology and medicine. CRISPR-Cas9 is “a revolutionary technology that allows for precise, targeted modifications to the DNA of living organisms” [EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG]. It has become the foundation for genome editing, leading to breakthroughs in research from crop engineering to potential human therapies (earning Doudna and Charpentier the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry).

Citations/Endorsements
One of the most highly endorsed biotechnological advances; described as a “game-changer” by the scientific community. The 2012 paper and follow-ups have thousands of citations and propelled an explosion of CRISPR research worldwide.

Source
Originally published in Science; preprint on academic servers, not arXiv

Attention Is All You Need – Ashish Vaswani et al. (2017)

Summary
Introduced the Transformer, a novel neural network architecture based solely on attention mechanisms, removing recurrence and convolution for sequence processing [ARXIV.ORG]. The paper demonstrated state-of-the-art results in machine translation with improved training speed and parallelization [ARXIV.ORG].

Influence
A landmark in AI, it is considered “foundational” for modern natural language processing [EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG]. The Transformer architecture enabled dramatic advances in language models (e.g. BERT, GPT series) and beyond, becoming the standard for most large-scale AI systems. This work essentially started the era of large language models, with the authors’ insight that “attention” alone can capture long-range dependencies proving transformative.

Citations/Endorsements
One of the most cited papers in AI (cited over 80,000 times as of 2024 [EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG]). Endorsed by experts as a breakthrough that “redefined NLP,” it underpins practically all state-of-the-art language and even vision models today.

Source
arXiv:1706.03762 

Deep Learning – Yann LeCun, Yoshua Bengio & Geoffrey Hinton (2015)

Summary
A comprehensive review that summarizes the advances in deep neural networks. It explains how multiple layers of representation (neurons) can be trained from data, allowing machines to discover intricate structures in images, speech, and other domains [DORADOLIST.COM]. The article highlights techniques like convolutional networks, recurrent networks, and deep unsupervised learning, and discusses their success in improving the state-of-the-art across many tasks [DORADOLIST.COM].

Influence
Written by three pioneers of the field, this paper educated a broad scientific audience and solidified the importance of deep learning. It accelerated the dissemination of deep neural network approaches in fields from computer vision to genomics. Often cited as a roadmap, it helped bridge the gap between research and real-world application, influencing countless practitioners.

Citations/Endorsements
Extremely highly cited (tens of thousands of citations) and widely endorsed. LeCun, Bengio, and Hinton later jointly won the 2018 Turing Award for their contributions—this paper essentially codified their achievements for posterity.

Source
Published in Nature; summary available via Nature or authors’ sites

Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger – B.P. Abbott et al. (LIGO Scientific Collaboration) (2016)

Summary
First direct detection of gravitational waves, ripples in spacetime predicted by Einstein. LIGO observed a signal (designated GW150914) from the merger of two black holes ~1.3 billion light-years away, matching the waveform predicted by general relativity. The paper details the instrumentation, data analysis, and significance of the event’s observation [QUANTAMAGAZINE.ORG].

Influence
Hailed as a monumental discovery in physics, confirming a century-old prediction and inaugurating the field of gravitational-wave astronomy. This opened a new window on the universe, allowing scientists to observe cosmic events (black hole and neutron star collisions) in a way never before possible. It was quickly lauded as one of the greatest scientific achievements of the decade and led to the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for key LIGO scientists.

Citations/Endorsements
The discovery paper garnered worldwide acclaim and thousands of citations in just a few years. It’s often cited as a shining example of large-scale scientific collaboration (with over 1,000 authors) and precision engineering enabling fundamental breakthroughs.

Source
arXiv:1602.03837 

Experimental Observation of the Higgs Boson – ATLAS & CMS Collaborations (2012)

Summary
Announced the discovery of the Higgs boson, a long-sought elementary particle responsible for giving mass to other particles in the Standard Model. Using proton–proton collision data from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the two independent experiments observed a new boson around 125 GeV with properties consistent with the predicted Higgs particle.

Influence
This discovery completed the Standard Model of particle physics, a foundational theory of how fundamental particles and forces interact. It was a triumph of both theoretical physics (confirming a 1964 prediction by Higgs et al.) and experimental technique, and it received the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics for the theoretical work. Beyond particle physics, the Higgs mechanism is a cornerstone of our understanding of the universe at the smallest scales.

Citations/Endorsements
The combined announcement papers are heavily cited and were front-page news worldwide. They are seen as landmark publications in science, often cited as the capstone of decades of international efforts in high-energy physics.

Source

• arXiv:1207.7235 
• arXiv:1207.7238 

On the Origin of Species – Charles Darwin (1859)

(Included here as a historical cornerstone.)

Summary
Although published as a book (not a short paper), it introduced the theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin provided exhaustive evidence that species are not immutable but evolve over generations through variation and survival of the fittest.

Influence
Arguably one of the most influential works in scientific history, profoundly shaping biology, medicine, and even social thought. It provided a unifying explanation for the diversity of life and laid the groundwork for modern evolutionary biology.

Citations/Endorsements
Cited and referenced in virtually every biological discipline; its impact on humanity’s view of itself and the natural world is incalculable. (Darwin’s work predates arXiv by over a century, but its inclusion here acknowledges its cross-disciplinary significance.)

Source
Published as a book in 1859

Global Warming of 1.5 °C (IPCC Special Report) – IPCC (2018)

Summary
A comprehensive assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change evaluating the impacts of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial global temperatures and pathways to limit warming. It synthesizes the findings of thousands of climate studies, projecting scenarios for climate change and urging rapid, far-reaching changes to avert catastrophic impacts.

Influence
Incredibly impactful in policy and public awareness, this report is highly useful to humanity as it directly informs global climate action. It underpins international agreements (like the Paris Accord) and is heavily cited in environmental research and policy papers.

Citations/Endorsements
Endorsed by the global scientific community and policymakers, referenced in government and UN discussions. Its “1.5 °C” focus galvanized climate policy debates worldwide.

Source
Official UN report; freely available on IPCC website