The induced charge distributions on two touching metallie spheres

immersed in uniform electric field

are influenced by the mutual interactions between the spheres. This influence depends in a complicated way on their radii and the orientation of the external field. In this paper

the image method is applied to this electrostatic problem. The image charges are determined exactly. The longitudinal and transverse dipole moments of the pair are derived

respectively. Here

thetotal induced charge of the pair is required to be zero. Hence our results have the generality compared with previous discussions.