2014-05-13 11:40 GMT+02:00 Georgi Guninski <[1]guninski@guninski.com>:

     > My understanding is that they are part of nature.  If you think
     about it, to hunter-gatherer-level societies, negative numbers could
     be called "imaginary":  There is no such thing as "negative-3
     sheep", for instance.  Nor is there a third of a (living) sheep.  It
     was easy enough for people to divorce themselves from the idea of
     integers, or positive numbers.  It was much more difficult to deal
     with "irrational numbers" (numbers which could not be expressed as
     the ratio of two integers).

   offtopic and what's worse:
   "You owe me three sheep. You have -3 sheep."
   "This grain must be shared between 3 people. 1/3 of the grain is his.
   1/3 is hers. 1/3 is mine."

References

   1. mailto:guninski@guninski.com