A conservative system has a constant phase-space density.

Joseph Liouville (1809-1882) said the following: Assume we have a system of ordinary differential equations of the form

\[\dot x=F(x)\]

whose solutions are continuous on the whole time axis such that for small times $t$ we can write

\[G(x)=x+F(x)t+{\cal O}(t^2)\]

for the group $G$ of corresponding transformations. Let $N(0)$ be the volume of an area $A(0)$ in the space ${x}$ at time $t=0$ with $A(t)=GA(0)$. If $F$ is divergence-free,

\[\nabla\cdot F=0\]

then $G$ leaves the volume $N$ unchanged,

\[N(t)=N(0).\]

Great, that’s exactly what we need: Interpret

\[x=(q,p)\]

as the phase-space vector of a Hamiltonian system such that

\[\dot x=(\dot q,\dot p)= \left( \frac{\partial H}{\partial p},-\frac{\partial H}{\partial q} \right)\]

and take the divergence:

\[\nabla\cdot F=\nabla\cdot\dot x= \frac{\partial}{\partial q}\dot q+\frac{\partial}{\partial p}\dot p =\frac{\partial^2H}{\partial p\partial q} -\frac{\partial^2H}{\partial q\partial p} =0.\]

Thus the phase-space density $f(x,t)$, $x=(q,p)$ of a Hamiltonian system is conserved. This theorem is the basis (with a modification to include nonconserving processes) for Boltzmann’s transport equation as well as the Navier-Stokes equation.