 Instead of the seconds pendulum method, the commission of the French Academy of Sciences – whose members included Lagrange, Laplace, Monge and Condorcet – decided that the new measure should be equal to one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator (the quadrant of the Earth's circumference), measured along the meridian passing through Paris.Apart from the obvious consideration of safe access for French surveyors, the Paris meridian was also a sound choice for scientific reasons