Why do [currents](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_%28mathematics%29), functionals on compactly supported differentiable *n*-forms, bear the name they do?


I've assumed that it has something to do with an electrical current being formalized as a vector field along a curve or other submanifold, but this is nothing but a guess.



Why are currents named currents?
George de Rham motivates the name "*current*" for his functionals by the fact that in three dimensions electric currents are represented by "*1-dimensional currents*".


The history of this concept is described by Jesper Lützen in [De Rham’s Currents](http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-9472-3_6).


