Clifford Paterson Lecture 2016 by Professor Russell Cowburn FRS. Magnetism is a very old subject and it is sometimes thought that there is little left to discover. All of that changes when nanotechnology and magnetism are brought together – without the technologies that have come out of that meeting we wouldn’t have social media, the Cloud or even the Internet. In this talk, Professor Cowburn will explain the new physics which is currently emerging from the rapidly changing research field of nanostructured magnetic materials, and how that new physics finds use in computer memory, in novel biomedical technologies and in detecting counterfeit documents and smuggled goods. Image credit: Chris van der Linden.