Sunshine by cooling

An overview of the development of cooler rings for fast ions with emphasis on electron cooling of heavy ion and radioactive beams is presented. Some of the most important discoveries made with the use of this new experimental tool include the first observation of string-like ordered ion beams, the development of Schottky mass spectrometry for precision mass measurements of radioactive nuclei, the discovery of bound-state #-decay of highly ionized nuclei and the calibration of the Re/Os cosmochronometer including a determination of the age of our Galaxy. First results of 1 s-state hyperfine interaction, and Lambshift measurements in hydrogen-like heavy ions are presented, together with an outlook on ongoing developments.