What is the ground state electron configuration of the element germanium?

Germanium (Ge) is located in the fourth row, group 14 of the , and has an of 32. This implies that the neutral Ge atom's must account for 32 electrons. So,

##"Ge": 1s^(2)2s^(2)2p^(6)3s^(2)3p^(6)4s^(2)3d^(10)4p^(2)##

An alternative way of writing the for Ge is by using the . The closest noble gas to come before Ge in is Argon (Ar), which means that the electron configuration we want is

##"Ge":["Ar"]4s^(2)3d^(10)4p^(2)##