If you blow something to smithereens, and you take one of the items that result, is it a smithereen?
Well, I don’t know if you would call it a smithereen. I did, however, find this short article at theonion.com:
MIT Physicists Split The Smithereen
CAMBRIDGE, MA–A team of MIT physicists announced Monday that they have successfully split the smithereen, heretofore considered the smallest possible unit of matter. “For decades, conventional scientific wisdom held that the most to which you could blow something was smithereens,” Dr. Jonathan Eng said. “It now appears that it is possible, under certain special laboratory conditions, to blow something to sub-smithereens.” Eng said he believes the discovery will revolutionize humanity’s potential for harnessing smithereenetic energy.
…the Mini-me of that guy Smithers on the Simpsons…