Negative Research

I'm new to this game, so I don't know if this is a bug or not, I have been looking for a forum topic and so far have found nothing with my current problem, but I seem to have started my new game out with -9,000,000 in the physics area. Well, I don't know if the first turn was that way but all my saved games back to about 6 or 7 turns into the game are this way. At this rate it will take half the game to get to level 2 in physics, so what is up with this? I'm guessing the physics branch of research is probably needed to have any chance of winning this game, so what can I do. I did consider the cheat code thing, but I hate to cheat as a work around, but maybe thats my only chance.

Thanks in advance for any help