What does the snake represent?
Q: This whole snake thing is just a metaphor, right?
A: I assure you, the snakes are very real.
Why, did the red elements mean something special?
</dijkstra>
I was lucky. My supervisor asked for recommendations for who to ask from the Math department and I replied "a push-over". He thought for a second then said "Ok, I know who to ask."
He asked the question "What is a random variable?" in an EE qualifying exam (not mine). The correct incantation ("A measurable function into the reals") was not heard from the candidate. A lot of other stuff was heard, at length.
The cure for this particular case of snake bite was a remedial class in measure theory.