(Hoping for a success ... in sending this reply)
Dear Eckard,
A) For the history of negative numbers:
1) http://nrich.maths.org/public/viewer.php?obj_id=5961
2) http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Negative_Numbers
3) "Lazare Carnot (1753-1823), member of the Academy of Science and famous mathematician:
" to really obtain an isolated negative quantity, it would be necessary to cut off an effective quantity from zero, to remove something of nothing: impossible operation. How thus to conceive an isolated negative quantity? "; Geometry of position, 1803.
" The numbers can be only positive; it is the quantities that can be negative or positive. A negative quantity is defined by an opposition to a positive quantity: a path in a direction, a path in the contrary direction; a profit, a debt... "
http://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/educacion/3/Usrn/penelope/uk_confboye.htm#elements
Negative numbers seem to "work" when the final result is positive but when the result is negative their physical meaning is none.
After all "negative numbers are distortion of physical logic".
B) Who is the first?
"Leucippus (5th c. BCE) is the earliest figure whose commitment to atomism is well attested. He is usually credited with inventing atomism. According to a passing remark by the geographer Strabo, Posidonius (1st c. BCE Stoic philosopher) reported that ancient Greek atomism can be traced back to a figure known as Moschus or Mochus of Sidon, who lived at the time of the Trojan wars. This report was given credence in the seventeenth century: the Cambridge Platonist Henry More traced the origins of ancient atomism back, via Pythagoras and Moschus, to Moses. This theologically motivated view does not seem to claim much historical evidence, however."
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atomism-ancient/#1
Regards,
Ioannis