SELECT from Nobel Tutorial

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nobel
yr subject winner
1960 Chemistry Willard F. Libby
1960 Literature Saint-John Perse
1960 Medicine Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet
1960 Medicine Peter Madawar
...

nobel Nobel Laureates

We continue practicing simple SQL queries on a single table.

This tutorial is concerned with a table of Nobel prize winners:

nobel(yr, subject, winner)

Using the SELECT statement.

Winners from 1950

Change the query shown so that it displays Nobel prizes for 1950.

SELECT yr, subject, winner
  FROM nobel
 WHERE yr = 1960
SELECT yr, subject, winner
  FROM nobel
 WHERE yr = 1950

1962 Literature

Show who won the 1962 prize for literature.

SELECT winner
  FROM nobel
 WHERE yr = 1960
   AND subject = 'Physics'
SELECT winner
  FROM nobel
 WHERE yr = 1962
   AND subject = 'Literature'

Albert Einstein

Show the year and subject that won 'Albert Einstein' his prize.

SELECT yr, subject
FROM nobel
WHERE winner = 'Albert Einstein'

Recent Peace Prizes

Give the name of the 'Peace' winners since the year 2000, including 2000.

SELECT winner
FROM nobel
WHERE subject = 'Peace'
AND yr >= 2000

Literature in the 1980's

Show all details (yr, subject, winner) of the literature prize winners for 1980 to 1989 inclusive.

SELECT yr,subject,winner
FROM nobel
WHERE subject = 'Literature'
AND yr BETWEEN 1980 AND 1989

Only Presidents

Show all details of the presidential winners:

  • Theodore Roosevelt
  • Thomas Woodrow Wilson
  • Jimmy Carter
  • Barack Obama
SELECT * FROM nobel
 WHERE yr = 1970
  AND subject IN ('Cookery',
                  'Chemistry',
                  'Literature')
SELECT * FROM nobel
 WHERE  winner IN ('Theodore Roosevelt',
  'Thomas Woodrow Wilson',
  'Jimmy Carter',
  'Barack Obama')

John

Show the winners with first name John

SELECT winner FROM nobel
  WHERE winner LIKE 'John %'

Chemistry and Physics from different years

Show the year, subject, and name of physics winners for 1980 together with the chemistry winners for 1984.

SELECT *
FROM nobel
WHERE (subject='Physics' AND yr=1980) OR
      (subject='Chemistry' AND yr=1984)

Exclude Chemists and Medics

Show the year, subject, and name of winners for 1980 excluding chemistry and medicine

SELECT *
FROM nobel
WHERE yr=1980 AND
  subject NOT IN ('Chemistry','Medicine')

Early Medicine, Late Literature

Show year, subject, and name of people who won a 'Medicine' prize in an early year (before 1910, not including 1910) together with winners of a 'Literature' prize in a later year (after 2004, including 2004)

SELECT *
FROM nobel 
WHERE (subject='Medicine' and yr <1910) OR
      (subject='Literature' AND yr>=2004)

Harder Questions

Umlaut

Find all details of the prize won by PETER GRÜNBERG

The u in his name has an umlaut. You may find this link useful https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9C#Keyboarding
SELECT *
FROM nobel 
WHERE winner in ('Peter Grünberg')

Apostrophe

Find all details of the prize won by EUGENE O'NEILL

You can't put a single quote in a quote string directly. You can use two single quotes within a quoted string.
SELECT *
FROM nobel 
WHERE winner in ('Eugene O''Neill')

Knights of the realm

Knights in order

List the winners, year and subject where the winner starts with Sir. Show the the most recent first, then by name order.

SELECT winner, yr, subject
FROM nobel 
WHERE winner LIKE 'Sir%'
ORDER BY yr DESC, winner

Chemistry and Physics last

The expression subject IN ('chemistry','physics') can be used as a value - it will be 0 or 1.

Show the 1984 winners and subject ordered by subject and winner name; but list chemistry and physics last.

SELECT winner, subject, subject IN ('Physics','Chemistry')
  FROM nobel
 WHERE yr=1984
 ORDER BY subject,winner
select winner, subject
from nobel
where yr=1984 
order by
  CASE WHEN subject in ('Physics','Chemistry') THEN 1 ELSE 0 END,
  subject,winner

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