(a) General properties
When a conductor is in the vicinity of some charge, a surface charge distribution is induced on the conductor in order to terminate the electric field. as the field within the equipotential surface is zero. This induced charge distribution itself then contributes to the external electric field subject to the boundary condition that the conductor is an equipotential surface so that the electric field terminates perpendicularly to the surface. In general, the solution is difficult to obtain because the surface charge distribution cannot be known until the field is known so that we can use the boundary condition of Section 2.4.6. However. the field solution cannot be found until the surface charge distribution is known.