A list of classic papers in chemical physics (more or less)

• Planck's 1901 paper (Surprisingly modern, easily readable paper that started it all)
• Mandelshtam-Tamm paper about the time/energy uncertainty principle , which was rediscovered in the context of quantum speed limits
• Onsager on time reversal symmetry and reciprocal relations
• Kramers theory . The results of this relatively short paper could easily fill 3 or 4 PhD dissertations
• The Kac lemma
• From deterministic dynamics to probability : the Kac ring model
• Hohenberg-Kohn theorem - a striking proof that takes a couple of lines
• Zwanzig-Caldeira-Leggett model - Zwanzig's first paper introducing this Hamiltonian
• Caldeira-Leggett's paper on dissipative tunneling
• Quantum Kramers theory
• Diffusion in a fluctuating potential (Lifson-Jackson theory related to the next paper on this list)
• Diffusion in a rough potential , little paper by Zwanzig that we are still reading
• Compact vs non-compact exploration of space by de Gennes
• Physics of Chemoreception by Berg and Purcell
• Jarzynski's identity
• Eli Pollak shows that the Kramers and Grote-Hynes theories are just transition-state theory

The last two items are not papers but short books, but they are included here because they offer more insight per line of text than almost any paper I know, and because they are shorter than many papers (including supporting information) published these days.

• Kac and Ulam, Mathematics and Logic .
• Free Energy Transduction in Biology - we are still reinventing and rediscovering Hill's insights