How can I place images side-by-side in restructured text?

You want the images to be part of the same paragraph and you want them to split the width of the screen so do something like this:

.. image:: im1.jpg
    :width: 50 %
.. image:: im2.jpg
    :width: 50 %

This doesn't exactly work, there will be some spacing between the 2 images which will put the total width >100%. A simple workaround is setting the widths to 49%. Doing so, below is the output with the unformatted image above to compare: RenderedImages

More reading: reST docs on Images

.. list-table:: 

    * - .. figure:: ../_static/1repren.png

           Fig 1. Representations

      - .. figure:: ../_static/5transparency.png

           Fig 2. Transparency
    * - .. figure:: ../_static/9ele.png

           Fig 3. Electrostatics

      - .. figure:: ../_static/11R3D.PNG.png

           Fig 4. R3D

I used substitution definitions:

|pic1| any text |pic2|

.. |pic1| image:: img1.png
   :width: 45%

.. |pic2| image:: img2.png
   :width: 45%