The phrase "a powerful formula" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it when describing a method, recipe, or strategy that is highly effective or impactful.
Example: "The scientist developed a powerful formula that significantly improved the efficiency of the chemical reaction."
Alternatives: "an effective solution" or "a strong method".
It's a powerful formula that has a future beyond any of today's economic and education pressures.
In that way, Mr. Stern has developed a powerful formula that has irritated Republicans: more unionizing translates into more political might — although the S.E.I.U.'s debts have climbed to $120 million under Mr. Stern.
It's a powerful formula and one which Radio 2 has taken to unprecedented levels of success.
This could be a powerful formula: the hand-curated quality of a visual event & lifestyle magazine plus the speed of a blog plus the personal relevance of a social and local network.
This daily facial cleanser combines jojoba oil, avocado oil, cucumber oil, chamomile oil, lemon & rose hip extract, and Vitamins A+E to create a powerful formula that will deeply clean clogged pores.
Experience and education, when combined, equal a powerful formula for success!
Artist plus developer(s) is a potentially powerful formula, and that goes for more than just music artists: filmmakers, animators, authors and others.
Right now, Mr. Market seems to think that's a pretty powerful formula.
In the special case of a geometric series where each successive number has the same lower-than-unity ratio to the number before it, the sum is always finite, and can be determined by the simple but powerful formula a/ 1-r) where a/ 1-rhe first term and r is the ratio.
A winning team in a nice facility in the right location is a powerful economic formula — as long as the taxpayers don't have to foot too much of the bill.
Dressed in high-waisted pants and carrying a cane, Bowie's elegance and showmanship on "The Dick Cavett Show," in 1974, while he was getting his plastic-soul thing together, didn't so much diminish the rather square-looking Cavett as inject a powerful social formula: what blackness looked like on a white artist.
