Astronomy
Chladni was truly an interdisciplinary individual. He contributed in a unique way not only to the arts, but also to the sciences in his astronomical research. Part of a group considered to be the Romantic scientists, he sought a unified body of knowledge that would heal the divisions between the seemingly divided disciplines of the arts and sciences. In order to cultivate this, he collected a wide range of influences and intellectual associates across these areas.
Chladni's great astronomical achievement was likely his argument that meteorites had a cosmic origin. Most scientists, including Aristotle and Newton, previously believed their origins were terrestrial, in lightning or volcanos. Chladni collected eyewitness accounts of fireballs and determined that the speed of the rocks’ movement through the atmosphere could not be ascribed to gravity alone. During these investigations he assembled the largest collection of meteorites in private hands, bequeathed at his death to the Natural History Museum at Berlin's Humboldt University.