What is a "supernatural" number?

Question

I read about it in Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, but I didn't get it.

Answer 1

A supernatural number is an abstract number that's a generalization of a number. Any natural number can be represented by powers of prime factors, as in :

N = 2^a * 3^b * 5^c * ....

A supernatural number is an infinitely large number which is expressed in the same way, except that N can contain every prime number (infinitely many of them) and the power of any a, b, c, .... can be infinite. It's helpful in set theory, or matters involving ordering or cardinality.